Stats Referer Spam Moderation, Like Blogger Comment Moderation, Is Collaborative

Some blog owners just do not understand the realities of referer spam moderation.

How can I set my dashboard, to not track pageviews from referring sites like "vampirestat . com"?

Not everybody understands that Stats was not designed for catering to individual preferences, in deciding what statistics should be displayed.

Stats spam moderation was not designed to allow for individuals to decide on what figures to display - or ignore. Like Blogger Comment moderation, Stats is collaborative, fuzzy, and heuristic.

Collaborative systems work best when everybody is subject to the same restrictions. Blogger / Google can best fight referer spam by monitoring all activity, against all blogs, uniformly.

Stats displays show the top 10 entries, in every list.

Some referer spam, like some genuine traffic, is not displayed, simply because at least 10 other traffic sources (bogus or genuine) are displayed.

Since newer blogs, with less established real traffic, are more vulnerable to referer spam, owners of newer blogs are more likely to demand individual filtering options. Owners of more mature blogs, who have devoted more time to publishing their blogs, don't see the spam, and don't worry about filtering it.

If individual blog owners were given the choice of what "traffic sources" should be filtered, for each different blog, they would waste more time examining their Stats displays, recording what sources appear spammy, and updating their filters. This would leave them less time for maintaining and publishing their blogs.

Given this possibility, referer spammers would be encouraged to tune their attacks, and to focus their attentions upon newer blogs, to encourage the newer owners to waste more time maintaining filters. In some cases, this could even enable referer spammers to conduct DOS attacks against blog owners who are naive enough to believe that they can effectively identify and filter referer spam.

With individual blog owners given the ability to individually filter Stats displays, referer spammers would be better able to conduct DOS attacks against innocent, third party blogs and websites.

Like every other righteously needed Blogger enhancement, adding individually maintained Stats filters would make Stats more complex. This would require Blogger Engineering to spend more time developing a feature demanded by a minority of blog owners - and spend less time developing and maintaining other, more essential features.

It does not require too much imagination to suspect the legitimacy of some of the unhappy blog owners.

Why does Blogger not give me the ability to decide, for myself, what traffic sources that I want to monitor?

Some of these might even be the referer spammers, forcing Blogger Engineering to develop features that, in the long run, would benefit the spammers as much as the blog owners.

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Comment Spam And Referer Spam Has Various Purposes

One of the most intriguing subjects discussed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken involves the seemingly purposeless spam which torments us in our comments and our Stats logs.

I see this random garbage on my blog - and the sites advertised are complete junk. Is there any actual reason for this?

Interestingly, both nice blog spam (in our comments), and referer spam (in our Stats logs), have purposes - though with the continually varying content used in both, it all looks very much like random garbage.

If we analyse the content, structure, and volume of the various spam attacks, we can see patterns - and an understanding of the overall purpose of the spam.

Both our comments - and our Stats logs - are continually assaulted by seemingly random and useless noise, in large volume. This is similar to the random spam which attacks our email.

If you look at enough comment and Stats log spam, you will start to see patterns - and reasons for the spam. The spam, though apparently random in content, is not purposeless.

First, some warning may be appropriate.

1. If you wish to examine the sites advertised in comment or referer spam, learn to use a proxy server.
2. Unless you are a computer security expert, with a properly protected (or intentionally sacrificial) computer, do not surf these sites advertised, using an unprotected computer. Avoidance is the best way to protect yourself.
3. If you do, even inadvertently, surf a comment or referer spam site, quarantine and scan your computer as soon as convenient. If you must surf the sites advertised, while unprotected, diagnosis is the next best way to protect yourself (and others around you).

Examining the comment and Stats based spam diagnostically, you'll see various purposes behind the spam.

• Spam delivery. It is called "comment spam" / "referer spam", after all.
• Malware delivery. This is the secondary purpose, known by many people - and the reason why I provide the above advice.
• Attacks against third party, non spammers. Various third party blogs and websites, who do not subscribe to the service, may be maliciously targeted, by some spam.
• Strategic malware delivery. Some malware may be packaged in portions, delivered through multiple attacks.
• Filter poisoning. Some spam may be simply intended to overwhelm the malware / spam detection systems.
• Email address mining. Some very special comment spam, which I call "Nice Blog" spam, is a very imaginative email address mining technique.

The best way to identify comment and referer spam may be to simply follow the various forum discussions - and observe which spam techniques are reported by multiple blog owners, being assaulted in identical style. As the old saying goes,

If it quacks, it's probably a duck.

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Why Does Referer Spam Get Reported, Primarily, By New Blog Owners?

One of the details of referer spam, that intrigued me for a while, involved who was reporting the spam.

Most - but not all - referer spam is reported by newbie owners. People who just setup a blog, and are anxiously waiting for their first readers outside their own country, are suddenly astounded

Wow, thousands of people are reading my blog - from China and Russia! I am an international celebrity, in my first week!!

The euphoria quickly vanishes, when told in the forums

Nobody is actually viewing your blog from these sites - and nobody knows about these links but you, since only you can see your Stats logs.

The general response to the cold water, dashed in their faces, is generally acceptance

Thank you for the prompt and informative reply - I'm very relieved to learn that the site is not actually linking to my blog.

The latter is the general response - but not the only response. Nobody should be surprised at that, as not everybody is the same. What is surprising, though, is who is not so accepting of my advice.

Of the people who do not seem to appreciate my advice - that the owner of the new blog is not an immediate international celebrity - not all of them are actual first time blog owners.

Many blog owners, who scorn my advice, turn out to be long time blog owners.

You are an idiot! I have other blogs, which I've been publishing for years - and none of them get this crap! How dare you tell me that this traffic is not targeting my new blog, intentionally?

Why would people who have published other blogs not see the spam traffic, in their other blogs? Particularly in other blogs that are well known, by the world, in general? And why would experienced blog owners not know of - or even believe - my advice?

The principle of Occam's Razor tells us to look for a simple explanation, to the questions. Instead of concluding that so many experienced blog owners are morons - or do not check their Stats logs like everybody else - or wondering if referer spammers carefully tune their spammy activities to only attack new blogs - the simple explanation is that every blog is subject to referer spam, in the same volumes.

Not every blog owner sees referer spam, in their Stats logs, simply because the volume of referer spam is not so heavy, compared to genuine traffic. If I check the Stats logs for this blog, repeatedly, throughout the day, I can generally find the currently mentioned spam domains, reflected in my pageview counts.

To reliably find the referer spam attacking my blog, I have to check my Stats logs frequently. In my case, when I note the domains in question, they will be listed in the "Now" time range - and occasionally in "Today" - when "Now" reflects early morning UTC (just after the daily counts reset).

If the referer spammers attack this blog during any other time of the day, the volume of legitimate traffic generally exceeds the referer spam traffic, any time outside "Now". Thanks to the limited function of the Stats logs, referer spam is simply not always visible, because legitimate traffic is more visible.

Thanks to regular changes by the spammers, and to ongoing spam blocking by Google, the same domains are not active for more than a week or so. The "Week" and "Month" normal volumes, for this blog, simply exceed the referer spam volumes.

And that's the case for everybody's blog. Check the logs for your blog, if you don't believe me. Just check frequently, and regularly, during a week, for the most accurate conclusion.

And that brings me to my last bit of advice, about the spam.

Concentrate on publishing your blog, and getting legitimate traffic - and the referer spam will not be an important issue.

That's not condescension, or snark - it's simple truth.
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Stats Pageview Counts Fluctuate Daily, Just Not At Midnight

One of the many controversial issues about Stats involves the daily pageview counts, which are reset daily.

Most blog owners accept the daily count reset, in principle - they just don't understand why the counts should be reset during their day, instead of at midnight.

My pageview count goes up during the day - but in the afternoon, it goes to zero, then starts over again. Why is Stats so unreliable?

The pageview count reset would be better understood, were it to happen daily, at midnight, for each blog owner. Unfortunately, there are over 24 different time zones, worldwide - and Blogger blogs are surely owned by some persons, in each of the time zones represented.

There are 24 time zones which roughly follow longitudinal lines - plus specific countries which have their own national clocks. India, for instance, spans 3 time zones, geographically - but observes one time zone, offset by 30 minutes, as "GMT+5.5". WikiPedia identifies a total of 40 time zones.

Many countries observe a seasonal variation, "Daylight Savings Time", when they move the clock ahead or behind, by an hour. DST beginning and ending date varies by country, irregularly.

If the daily Stats pageview count reset were to be scheduled according to the local clock of the blog owner (which would be impossible, for all multi owner blogs), there would have to be as many reset process schedules as there are countries in the world. Additionally, twice a year, most processes schedules would be shifted, according to the local DST offset.

Considering the almost inestimable number of rules required to schedule a local midnight count reset for all Blogger blogs, during the entire year, I suspect that the only practical design involves scheduling the reset, for all blogs, at midnight GMT. This means that no blog owners will see their pageview counts reset at midnight, during the entire year.

Everybody simply has to accept their count being reset sometime during their day - with the reset time varying according to the twice a year local clock shift.

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Stats Time Ranges, And Pageview Count Recalculations, Cause Confusion

Periodically, we see evidence of confusion about Stats and the pageview counts, as provided in the various displays and time ranges, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

My pageview counts keep going down!

or

My counts go up during the day - but in the afternoon, they drop to zero!!

or

My counts keep going down! There's no end to the drop!!

All of these complaints - and more - involve blog owners, who don't understand the relationships between the displays and time ranges.

We've explored the results of the ongoing referer spam war, of normal viewer activity, and of the daily pageview count reset which is applied, simultaneously, to all blogs. Besides those 3 issues, there is some confusion about the relationships between the various time ranges.

There are 6 different displays - and opportunities for confusion.

1. The Dashboard "Overview" page.
2. The Posts "All time" per post pageviews count.
3. The Stats "Overview" page.
4. The Stats "Posts" page.
5. The Stats "Traffic sources" page.
6. The Stats "Audience" page.

The 4 Stats display pages each offer 5 different "Time range" displays.

• Now (the last 2 hours).
• Day (the last 24 hours).
• Week (the last 7 days).
• Month (the last 30 days).
• All time (since May 2008, when Stats pageview counts were first extracted) - though possibly missing one year or another.

Some blog owners try to compare the Stats "Overview" histogram (in its 5 time ranges), with the "Overview" counts ("today", "yesterday", "last month", and "all time history"). Unfortunately, the graphs and numbers are recalculated (by Blogger) on various schedules.

• Some are recalculated on a minute by minute basis.
• Some are recalculated hourly.
• Some are recalculated daily (but not necessarily at midnight, for everybody).

Confusion arises, when a blog owner refreshes a display, without understanding when the numbers behind the display may have been recalculated, relevant to reader activity.

• When reader activity occurs, the graphs / numbers (when refreshed, following a recalculation) will indicate an increase.
• When reader activity expires from relevance, the graphs / numbers (when refreshed, following a recalculation) will indicate a decrease.
• When reader activity is removed because it was bogus, the graphs / numbers (when refreshed, following a recalculation) will indicate a decrease.

Like the inability to balance the various per post pageview counts, the task of balancing the various graphs and numbers may be beyond the ability of some blog owners. Each count or graph has to be considered on its own.

Understanding any two displays, in context with each other, simply may not be possible.

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Fluctuations In Stats Pageview Counts Are More Obvious, To Owners Of Newer Blogs

Some owners of newer Blogger blogs spend time reading their Stats logs, and worry that their "All time" pageview counts don't always go up - they go down, too.

Why do the counts go down? Is there one number, that I can believe?

They don't understand that with Stats, you need to look for trends - not absolute readings. In the beginning, fluctuations are more obvious, and trends are less obvious.

Thanks to the referer spam war, and to normal visitor activity, even the "All time" numbers will go up and down - for newer blogs, which have less genuine and constant visitor traffic. And the constant rise and fall is scary - until you get used to it.

Newer blogs have less established readers, which makes both the periodic referer spam and normal visitor activity generated spikes more visible. With the 4 limited time ranges (Now, Day, Week, and Month), the spikes will "move" in and out of context - and make pageview counts in these time ranges fluctuate. When a spike in numbers "moves in" to a time range, the pageview counts will rise, suddenly. When a spike "moves out" of a time range, the counts will fall, just as suddenly.

With newer blogs, the fluctuations exert a "double whammy".

1. The fluctuations are more visible, because overall genuine visitor activity is lower. Less readers = less visitor activity.
2. Worrying over the fluctuations takes time away from working on the blog. Less time working on the blog leads to less blog content, attracts less new readers, and leads to less visitor activity.

More experienced blog owners know to use Stats to watch for trends - not immediate numbers.

The answer is simple, really. Monitor Stats periodically - not constantly. Watch for trends, and know how to interpret the trends. Spend more time working on your blog, because that's where the value of your blog lies.

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Fluctuations In Reader Activity Level Are Normal

One sign of panic, seen regularly in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, comes from people who spend a lot of time viewing their Stats logs.

My pageview counts are always going up and down. Why is Stats so flaky?

It's good to monitor your reader activity - sometimes this will warn you of a major problem in the Internet, or with Blogger. But keep it in perspective.

No matter what time range you view, in Stats - "Now", "Day", "Week", "Month", or "All time" - you can expect to see fluctuations - peaks and valleys - in pageview counts.

• If you spend time working on your blog this week, and your work is successful, your readers may enjoy the blog more next week. Conversely, if your work is unsuccessful, they may enjoy it less.
• As Google deals with the constant waves of referer spam, you'll see a drop in counts across all time ranges. And as new referer spam campaigns come online, you'll see the counts rise.
• Unless your blog is completely homogenous across all world wide cultures, you'll have one or two predominant audiences. Your audiences will eat, sleep, and go to work - and all real life activity will affect their viewing of your blog.

It's good to watch the counts, understand your audience, and be prepared to take action if you see a significant rise or fall - but don't obsess over the details.

Remember that your readers will appreciate content, so keep publishing to the blog. And, learn to understand the trends.

And, to best avoid confusion, use more than one visitor log / meter.

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