Comments on: Bots that cheat

By: id systems

id systems — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:56:39 +0000

TheNerd, I dont really know if it’s anything worth bragging about. I mean, every single blog’s referrer report looks like this one. Not really uncommon.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:30:19 +0000

Here is the latest signature of the Spambot for http://www.fast-search-engine.com

Host: 65.75.152.120

/
Http Code: 200 Date: Nov 13 10:16:01 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 4727
Referer: http://www.fast-search-engine.com/
Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)

They are now using ^65.75.
I’ve alos blocked all of the IP’s that belong to the company that hosts http://www.fast-search-engine.com as they are well-known for Spam Bots

By: Dirk

Dirk — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:49:14 +0000

Brandimensions call themselves “an online brand protection company” (direct quote from an email I received). So I assume their bot is spidering pages for trademark violation and similar things.

By: Patti

Patti — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 22:16:12 +0000

What the heck is all this about? I found this ‘brandimentions’ thing in my stats page on my personal blog site on spaces.live.com. I don’t get it…call me stupid if you want but I’m just wondering what it all is?

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 04:10:13 +0000

I agree with the administrator of this site. Spam comments on blogs are one of the biggest problems, and any help you give on other your blog for user agents helps out all web masters. Thanks for the info.

By: Damn Spam! - More stupid bots: Exabot and NG/2.0

Damn Spam! - More stupid bots: Exabot and NG/2.0 — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:40:48 +0000

[...] ct).

Sorry guys, that’s not how this works. Go searching for a clue …P.S. Ann Elisabeth wasn’t too happy with a previous incarnation of that bot either. [...]

By: Administrator

Administrator — Thu, 05 May 2005 11:47:39 +0000

You’re wrong.

Many of these sites will never have a link to my site, and when they do, then THAT link is what’s legitimate in my logs, not the link to the site itself.

The user agent field of a bot should contain the URL of the site, but maybe shortened. The referer field of a bot should be blank.

By: ThaNerd

ThaNerd — Thu, 05 May 2005 11:31:29 +0000

That’s an affair of the way you think of it. The referer is useful in the way to discover which websites have a link to yours. And if the bot comes and index your site, then the site of the people running the bot will, soon or yet, have a link to yours. Thus it is somewhat legitimate.

See, i don’t see the point of making public the statistics of your website. Statistics are useful for the admin! That’s ALL. I consider the fact of givin access to your site as childish as bragging about your car or income or number of female partners. “See the size of my referer-spam list? Do you see my big stats?”

User Agent string is meant to be the name of a bot, and it’s version. It should NOT provide information out of that. As a result, when you see a bot, out of googling the useragent, how could you know where the information it gathers will be published? That’s how the Referer is useful.