While I like Lew's site, do read it fairly often, and even link to the odd article I find there of particular importance, I'm not going to start referrer spamming other libertarian oriented sites to get views. I mean how insane, the lib. space is so minisucle a reputation can be broken on one mis-worded email. But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself...

This afternoon I was bored, so I started wasting time by nosing around in one of our log file tools, and I found the below in the “Latest Visitors” section.

Host: 204.86.64.143

/ron_paul_and_davy_crockett_paul4prez.html
Http Code: 200 Date: Sep 14 10:07:01 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 29843
Referer: http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north565.html
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5) Gecko/20070716 MultiZilla/1.8.3.3e SeaMonkey/1.1.3

Translating the above gobblygook, it indicates that someone clicked on a link to us from one of LewRockwell.com's Gary North's articles. So, being slightly ego stroked I wandered over to the story in question to see what they had to say about us. Except there was nary a link to us there. Nor does there even seem to be any reference to Crockett or Paul, which would at least give sustenance to the, “There was a link, but it's now been removed.”

So, what gives?

Sure, setting up a 'bot, or a proxy filter, or a dozen other methods to change the Referer field is dead simple, but that really falls into Black (or at best Dark Grey) Hat SEO tactics [1]. Which is rather unseemly, and highly annoying, given the tiny population of the libertarian web space. And it was from Lew!

Now the odds are it isn't someone even associated with Lew Rockwell, but if so, stop already, you're just giving Lew a bad rep. And in the more likely event it's someone who thinks they are doing Lew favors: Again, Stop! You aren't. The opposite in fact. (Okay, maybe your an evil Republican/Democrat with a bit of script kitty knowledge, and think your being 'bad to the bone?' Annoying? Yes. Urber Webbie? No. I've known seven year old girls with 'madder' skills. Who have even taught me a thing or two, when I could slow their mouse hand down enough to see what they were clicking on...)

Now, if your a libertarian, you're in violation of a bunch of libertarian tenets, so I'm hoping you're not (you know, your just might tarnish your immortal soul doing that). Otherwise, I'll guess you're one of those other political breeds who don't follow their stated tenets anyway, so: Whatever.

But, whoever you are, I've got your IP address, and I'm not afraid to use it! So don't make me break out a traceroute and a proxy hacking script of my own...

Be Well All (and quit leaving trash in my logs),

M.J. Taylor
Publisher
from Reason to Freedom

[1] I guess I should explain that a bit. Referrer spamming is a not uncommon practice that places false referral links in other websites' logfiles, so that whoever reads the logfiles will come visit the false link. It's generally not aimed at the websites administrator (me in this case), or even the general public (you), it's usually used against sites that automatically publish their referrer logs (we don't), and thereby garners one-way inbound text links for the obnoxious site, which then gets picked up by search engines and increases the search result rankings for the scumbag site. And no, I don't think Lew is a scumbag site; viagra-for-cheep now, definitely qualifies.