Huge spam bot influx

[Eve4]

Anyone know why there would suddenly be a MASSIVE increase in spam bots from a large number of different sites (many Russian, but not all)?  I have Google Analytics set up to filter most of that crap out, but I can see the crazy data in the Weebly stats page.  I know it's normal to have some of this activity, and I've had a Weebly site for years now.  It just seems like a huge attack in the past few days.  I'm no expert, so I don't know whether it's possible that Weebly has done something different that allows/attracts this?  Are others experiencing the same?

[Adam7]

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@Eve wrote:

Anyone know why there would suddenly be a MASSIVE increase in spam bots from a large number of different sites (many Russian, but not all)?  I have Google Analytics set up to filter most of that crap out, but I can see the crazy data in the Weebly stats page.  I know it's normal to have some of this activity, and I've had a Weebly site for years now.  It just seems like a huge attack in the past few days.  I'm no expert, so I don't know whether it's possible that Weebly has done something different that allows/attracts this?  Are others experiencing the same?

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Hey @Eve!

It's not unusual to see this kind of activity ebb and flow to some extent.  It doesn't really hurt anything other than being annoying, and like you said it's common to see this with any site on the internet (imagine what Amazon must see...).

Anyway, I'd recommend just ignoring it as it'll taper off on its own.

[Eve4]

Adam,

I get that it's not unusual to see this activity "ebb and flow to some extent."  It's just that it seems very dramatic in the past few days, beyond anything I've seen before, and it is not coming from just one address or a few related addresses.  I'm used to ignoring semalt and all their permutations (keywords-monitoring-your-success!).  But now I have tons of Russian watches, porn, gardening, onlinemeds, and what-have-you, just in the past... perhaps 72 hours.  Just wondering whether it is specifically my site experiencing this now, or Weebly-wide, or internet-wide, or what.  Not necessarily looking for Weebly to comment, but curious about other people's experiences.

[NickyLimes]

Hello @Eve

  I have seen many many sites that have experienced this surge in indexing and backlinking from Russian sites of all different varieties. Unfortunately, there is no way to actually stop search engines from indexing and broadcasting your site. I can assure you that this does not hurt your site in any way. It just looks a little scary when you see them in your site stats.

[JD-OnThePath]

These bots screw up my site stats, an important metric for managing my site. I've tried a black list but it's high maintenance since new bot sources show up all the time. I understand tools like Captcha can help. I belived there may be open source versions. If you have a limited clientel you can put a password on your site.

Hope this helps

Jeff

[Evridiky]

Hello I have the same issue. Big list of porn and other spam sites from Russia!!! I cannot understand this. 

[Adam7]

I'd recommend ignoring those stats, @Evridiky. Pretty much every site on the internet will get that kind of referral spam. No one can see it but you, so ignoring it is usually the best approach.

[LittleToni]

My problem is I don't have to wade through the thousands of shoe ads to see if there's a legitimate question from a reader for me...I don't update my blog a lot, but have pretty much given up on legitimate inquiries and it concerns me because I wouldn't want an actual reader to think I don't care....

[PAMC]

I am too; even after I added chapta to all my contact forms

[Bernadette3]

Hi Peggy, 

I replied to your post on the previous thread.