WordPress Optimisation: Block WordPress Referral Spam

January 21st, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

Matt from Digital9 has been helping to fix my poor site that despite many people trying to help is still struggling along. He’s currently working wonders with the mysql process. I’ve asked him to keep a list of the changes he’s making so that I can share them with other WordPress users.

So far he’s got my average load down from the crazy peaks of around 3-4 (caused by Extended Live Archives which is a massive resource hog, but I really want it!) down to just under 1. Things are a lot better already, but Matt says my mysql database is still a mess and needs a lot more work. Once he’s done tweaking mysql he’s going to optimise my theme and pages to make them load faster. Can’t wait!

One problem he identified was that although I’d got my comment spam (was peaking at 350 per min) and trackback spam problem under control using SK2, a clever tweak on the comment form and the math comment spam plugin, I was still getting hit with hundreds of referral spams.

If you haven’t come across referral spams yet, it’s when a site creates a fake referral which appears to come from a certain site. What they are hoping is that for servers that publish their top referrals, then their site will be featured and will get picked up by search engines. Unfortunately, when these ‘referrals’ hit a certain level like on my server, they can almost bring it down like a denial attack. Pretty dumb really, and ineffective.

What Matt did to fix this problem was to install Angsuman’s Referral Bouncer Plugin. What this plugin does is basically turn the fake referrers away like a bouncer at a club. Or, as Matt described it:

Matt: lets say my site was bobs-sexy-goblins.com and we’d banned goblins :P….i’d be told to f off and sent (back) to bobs-sexy-goblins.com, and your site doesn’t accept it, they dont see your site, apache is at ease :) oh and please don’t think i have a sexual infatuation with goblins - that was purely random and meant to be slightly amusing
Everton: that’s one clever plugin

Bookmark & Share

Related Posts

«« How To Fix Subscribe To Comments Plugin In Wordpress 2.1 RC1
MBL Community: Free Wallpaper Changer »»

About the Author

author photo

Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK. He also writes for Windows 7 News.

See All Posts by This Author

There Are 3 Responses So Far. »

  1. #1

    Comment by Ajay on 21 January 2007:

    Hey cool, didn’t know about this plugin. Will give it a shot as well.

  2. #2

    Pingback by How To Eliminate WordPress Spam Forever! | OneTipADay.com on 31 January 2007:

    [...] came across referral spam after reading this article on Connected Internet. Referral spam is when a site creates a fake referral which appears to come from a certain site. [...]

  3. #3

    Pingback by WordPress Plugins I’m Currently Using | Connected Internet on 26 June 2007:

    [...] Angsuman’s Referrer Bouncer v1.2 by Angsuman Chakraborty: Great tool for reducing referral spam [...]

Subscribe without commenting

Post a Response


Comment Policy: Any comments are permitted only because the site owner is letting you post, and any comments could be removed for any reason at the absolute discretion of the site owner.