Locating a referrer

I read the phrase "sniffing a referrer" in this group the other day...I
wonder if such a process could help me with a problem I'm having with a link
somewhere on the Web.

Adult content warning - the URL's in this message are to an adult-oriented
site. If this content is bothersome, please don't go there.

Anyway -

I am the temporary (yeah, right - it's a not-for-profit organization)
Webmaster for a site, and I'm fairly new at this. Many sites carry our link,
and we get about a third of our traffic from referrers. One of those
referrers has our primary address correct (it's www.lra-chicago.org) but
their link is actually to a page called M, so the address that is actually
requested is www.lra-chicago.org/m. Trouble is, we don't have a page called
"M" or "m", so of course, we generate 404 errors.

I looked through the error log that tells me that the page didn't exist, but
the IP number that appears there seems to be the IP number of the server
that last had the request before the request got to the site.

So, does anyone know of a way to figure out who the real referrer is? And,
if this address looks familiar, it's because I posted a more general
question about five or six weeks ago, and I've made a lot of progress fixing
things that came up from your comments. Not all of them, but enough that I'm
closer to being sure that there's nothing grossly wrong.

Thanks to all of you for your help.


Steve E.
electronic-services@lra-chicago.org

You can check your server logs and find the refering url but you have to
tell your server to retrieve this information or it won't by defualt.

What server is your website on?
apache?
iis?
those are the two most common.
I can tell you how to set up either one.

The ip is usually the ip of the person that visited the site the the
reffering page.


--
http://www.pr0nsites.com
http://www.tentpants.com

"Serious_Practitioner" <Serious_PractitionerNOSPAM@att.net> wrote in message
newsyole.253747$cg1.162046@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> I read the phrase "sniffing a referrer" in this group the other day...I
> wonder if such a process could help me with a problem I'm having with a
link
> somewhere on the Web.
>
> Adult content warning - the URL's in this message are to an adult-oriented
> site. If this content is bothersome, please don't go there.
>
> Anyway -
>
> I am the temporary (yeah, right - it's a not-for-profit organization)
> Webmaster for a site, and I'm fairly new at this. Many sites carry our
link,
> and we get about a third of our traffic from referrers. One of those
> referrers has our primary address correct (it's www.lra-chicago.org) but
> their link is actually to a page called M, so the address that is actually
> requested is www.lra-chicago.org/m. Trouble is, we don't have a page
called
> "M" or "m", so of course, we generate 404 errors.
>
> I looked through the error log that tells me that the page didn't exist,
but
> the IP number that appears there seems to be the IP number of the server
> that last had the request before the request got to the site.
>
> So, does anyone know of a way to figure out who the real referrer is? And,
> if this address looks familiar, it's because I posted a more general
> question about five or six weeks ago, and I've made a lot of progress
fixing
> things that came up from your comments. Not all of them, but enough that
I'm
> closer to being sure that there's nothing grossly wrong.
>
> Thanks to all of you for your help.
>
>
> Steve E.
> electronic-services@lra-chicago.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

"Serious_Practitioner" <Serious_PractitionerNOSPAM@att.net> wrote in message
newsyole.253747$cg1.162046@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>I read the phrase "sniffing a referrer" in this group the other day...I
>wonder if such a process could help me with a problem I'm having with a
>link somewhere on the Web.
>
> Adult content warning - the URL's in this message are to an adult-oriented
> site. If this content is bothersome, please don't go there.
>
> Anyway -
>
> I am the temporary (yeah, right - it's a not-for-profit organization)
> Webmaster for a site, and I'm fairly new at this. Many sites carry our
> link, and we get about a third of our traffic from referrers. One of those
> referrers has our primary address correct (it's www.lra-chicago.org) but
> their link is actually to a page called M, so the address that is actually
> requested is www.lra-chicago.org/m. Trouble is, we don't have a page
> called "M" or "m", so of course, we generate 404 errors.
>
> I looked through the error log that tells me that the page didn't exist,
> but the IP number that appears there seems to be the IP number of the
> server that last had the request before the request got to the site.
>
> So, does anyone know of a way to figure out who the real referrer is? And,
> if this address looks familiar, it's because I posted a more general
> question about five or six weeks ago, and I've made a lot of progress
> fixing things that came up from your comments. Not all of them, but enough
> that I'm closer to being sure that there's nothing grossly wrong.
>
> Thanks to all of you for your help.
>
>


There is a method of spamming which involves hitting referrer logs with
their site address. i.e. if you check enough you'll find that their referer
address is also false. Many webmasters check their referring sites. If you
get a 404, you'll definitely check, maybe.

Anyway, it ups their traffic numbers. Ignore it and move on with your site
....