bwp.download.com referrer.

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Jun 2006

I hope there was not a more relative forum that i missed...

So, the last week or so my logs show that I get a lot of visitors referred from http://bwp.download.com/search/ .
However, anything I try on the bwp.dowload.com subdomain gives me a blank page. I first assumed it was download.com's search function, but it doesn't seem to have something to do with the bwp subdomain.
Anybody know where exactly these hits come from?

Thanks!

megamoose's picture

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Oct 2006

I have heard that sometimes people post fake refers to either get another site in trouble or to add to a websites page rank. If google or the public have access to your logs then it'll just increase the sites PR if its an active link. (apparentl)

Mark

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Jun 2006

No, the log is private and the hits seem legitimate (ip's point to various isp's all over the world etc).
E.g. (private parts replaced by XXX)

XXX.cable.casema.nl - - [11/Oct/2006:01:57:54 -0400] "GET XXX HTTP/1.1" 200 5511 "http://bwp.download.com/search?&nodeid=11138" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

We do have google adwords, so I would be worried of click fraud, but I cannot understand how it could be related.
Thanks!

They have: 1 posts

Joined: Oct 2006

dunno if this thread is still active, but I have noticed the same page referrer recently on my own website. I also use google adwords and I use the google affiliate network (ask.com, howstuffworks, etc).

The bwp.downloads.com referrer accounts for about 4% of my hits and considering it is a recent phenomenon that's kind of significant.

Anyone know who this referrer is? Anyone...anyone...Buehler?

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Jun 2006

It is indeed the google ads that load from CNET affiliate sites.
For example go to download.com, do a search and you will see google ads loaded from bwp.download.com.
The fact that CNET has many popular sites explains why you get 4% of your traffic from there (and I get 9%).

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