Not really certain if this is the proper forum for this but can anyone explain what URL Harvesting is? I am asking because while reviewing the google analytics/referring sites info for my company's website I saw referral traffic from a site called trafficfaker.com.
Any insight would be welcome. Thank you.
MktgRob
7
Nearly a Posting Virtuoso
MktgRob
7
Nearly a Posting Virtuoso
I did some more searching on this and discovered that this is similar to e-mail harvesting but instead of gathering e-mail addresses to spam, URL Harvesting uses a bot to crawl urls with similar keywords and created fake visits (on my corporate site each of the 14 visits in the last 10 days consisted of a single page visit with immeadiate exit and no time on the site). From what I read at Trafficfaker.com, the creators and sellers of this crap, is that the benefits are two fold. First, the web manager sees the referral site in whatever analytics software they use and click on the link to investigate, thus generating a hit on the site that is harvesting. The second is that the harvested url is then presented as one that is referring traffic to the site doing the harvesting.
Having said all of that, I encourage those of you who are infinitely smarter than me to visit the site I listed above, read their crap and please post up here anyway that the bot in question might be stopped. As Daniweb rules might block out the site I listed above, search on Traffic Hacker to find the site.
Please note, I formerly did some work for DaniWeb a few years back and I am currently working for a private institutional investment firm. I do not work for the URL Harvesting company and I am only looking for a way to stop these pinheads from using my company's url to make themselves look better.
Thanks.
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