I currently use the WordPress plug-in WP-ShortStat (I’m thinking about trying out Mint. Is anyone using it out there?) that seems to do a better job of tracking visitors to buttonmashing.com than Statcounter, which I also use. Recently, I’ve noticed hundreds of hits from *.to addresses. They show up in the ShortStat logs but not the Statcounter logs. I figure these are hits from spammers. Weird thing is, Spam Karma isn’t reporting any comment/track back spam from these addresses. This is what a recent bit from the ShortStat report looks like:
buy-adipex.drop.to 10:14 pm
alprazolam.go.to 10:14 pm
alprazolam.go.to 10:14 pm
online-hydrocodone.drop.to 10:14 pm
buy-cialis.hey.to 10:14 pm
viagra-.get.to 10:14 pm
online-valium.get.to 10:14 pm
viagra-.get.to 10:14 pm
phentermine-.get.to 10:14 pm
hydrocodone.mysite.de 10:14 pm
online-fioricet.drop.to 10:14 pm
xanax.get.to 10:14 pm
Does anyone know what these hits would be accomplishing? If you go to one of the sites, you go to a spam search site hawking whatever the *.go.to or *.get.to is. If you go straight to go.to or get.to you get redirected to v3 Web Hosting. I imagine that’s a cheap place to get sub domains to redirect to your paid for search page. Anyway, it still doesn’t make sense to me.
Any other bloggers seeing these same kind of hits showing up? Is there any rhyme or reason to this? Or is it something I should just ignore? I’m not learned in the ways of the nefarious spammer. It’s just something that’s bothering me.
These are MoveableType trackers. They’re scanning your site to see if they can spam MT blogs. Don’t worry, WordPress spiders are coming. 🙂
I block all .to domains and all Asian IPs to mine. Sure, i’m alienating a fourth of the world from my site, but a large number of that fourth I don’t want there because of their web practices anyway.
Shane a la Aeropause uses Mint, IIRC. Might bug him. I use StatCounter, so I’m not seeing any such spammery. Course, i did have to just put the reverse Turing word challenge to keep the down the Blogger spammers, so maybe they’re coordinating an assault now.
I can only hope that one of these days there will be a Congress|wo|man who actually routinely uses email and they get crashed by a spammer. That’s about what it will take before we see any serious laws on the subject.
Thanks for the tips. I’ll have to drop Shane a line about Mint.
It would appear that the deluge of hits from the .to domain have subsided. It’s weird, one day I’m getting slammed and today… Nothing. Weird.
I was introduced to a WP plugin, by a friend, called Bad Behavior. It’s great in dealing with the problem you are having.