Linkspun.com

he, think we need a dereferer in link and trade overview so that google dont see the refererer linkspun in analytics....

WORD!

Really needed or just hocus pocus?

Google is blocked from accessing the site.

It would be easy for Google to infer which sites are part of the linkspun network should they choose to do so. (The referer appears in analytics. - And worse, in public-viewable stats pages from improperly secured directories). I think a dereferer would be a good measure to prevent accidental automated bans in the future. Just my 2 cents.

Hmm... Do people actually use the little link to go out to google to check how a sites SERPs are for a particular keyword choice?

No matter what Google can track things with their own toolbar most of you probably have installed.

Hmm... So you are wondering about Analytics picking up people from linkspun....

I guess it would look odd to have so many hits from a site called linkspun.com and no actual indexed links from linkspun...

test

test

Anybody have tips on removing/switching the referrer?

It seems meta-refresh only works on IE and Firefox. Not Chrome and Opera. I can set up another domain, but then that domain will be the referrer. Going to do another test with cURL...

From everything I've learned over the past coupled of days it seems the only way to truly scrub the referrer is to pass the surfer through two different domains. One domain will fail a few times, so you need two to be sure. So if you guys are cool with everything passing through two domains I can set this up.

Using meta refresh simply doesn't work on Chrome and Opera. So any forums or anything else you currently surf using this method is leaking the referrer if you are using Chrome. Good thing to keep in mind!

I haven't tried to build a dereferrer, yet, but I think JavaScript might be an option. Something with "location.replace".

One thing you'll have to make sure, though (even with the test you posted up there): You have to make sure that only you can create links that work. Otherwise email spammers WILL abuse your redirect link technology.

Just do something like...

derefer.php?url=http....&hash=abcd1234

Where hash is a md5/sha1 of some secret key and the url. I would probably even add an "until" parameter with a timestamp to expire links after some time. It's just a little more work to add that, but it will protect you from angry mails where people saw your server domain in their SPAM mails...