[vox-tech] Website Referral From Porn Site

[Ryan]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 02:20:22PM -0800, Bob Scofield scofield-at-omsoft.com |lugod| wrote:
> I've got a business website; www.legalargument.net.
> 
> This site is for my legal research and writing law practice.  It contains some 
> useful legal information, mostly dealing with different types of subpoenas.
> 
> I check my web stats, given to me by my webhosting service, almost every day.  
> There is a chart labeled, "Top 30 of 53 Total Referrers."  Here is the entry 
> for the seventh top referrer, indicating 5 "hits."
> 
> 7 	5 	0.35% 	http://xxxxxxxx.xxx
> 
> xxxxxxxxx.xxx is a porn site.  How can I be referred by a porn site?  I can see 
> someone visiting a porn site, and then going to my URL.  But would that count 
> as a referral?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referrer_spam

Someone visiting a porn site, and then your site does not count as a referral.
The referral headers in HTTP, are totally unauthenticated; A client can just
lie.  See the --referer option for wget, for example.

-Ryan