Stats online/anonymous referrer question.

[marcellis]

I'm not sure why. I've had a lot of downloads from Europe lately, where the referring page is anonymous.

What are the possible explanations? I know that entering the url directly into the browser is one possibility. But does anyone know some others?

The ISP downloading the song is not anonymous. It shows up in the stats. But the referring page is missing.

The stats will look like this: (This particular hit is from Rome Telecom).


Host: 92.82.174.116

/Chaplin_on_the_Subway_copyright_2004_Marc_Ellis_La xmi_Music_ASCAP.mp3
Http Code: 200 Date: Mar 05 02:38:33 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 3266248
Referer: -
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12

Compare the referring page there with this download from Moscow. The referring page is shown. It's an MP3 search engine. If you enter that url in your browser, you'll see Cyrillic script in the search form and my song downloaded listed at #3 on that page.


Host: 217.12.240.50
/Chaplin_on_the_Subway_copyright_2004_Marc_Ellis_La xmi_Music_ASCAP.mp3
Http Code: 200 Date: Mar 05 01:07:41 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 3266248
Referer: http://www.tagoo.ru/?search=%F7%E0%F0%EB%E8+%F7%E0%EF%EB%E8%ED
Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; MRA 5.0 (build 02067); MRSPUTNIK 2, 0, 0, 17 SW; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.2)

This is unusual. Almost every time, the mp3 downloaded is that particular song. Although I've noticed it on a few others too. But every masked referral on these recent downloads is from Europe.

Since January,that particular song been downloaded hundreds of times. Very unusual for my site. And if it's downloaded from outside the EU, I normally get referring page info. Sometimes I get it from France & UK also. But in every single case when a referrer is masked on these downloads, it's from a European ISP.

Is it a RIPE/EU protocol to block referring pages from appearing in stats? Does anyone know?

[Standard8]

Cest le Vie!

[ZERO HEROES]

Block it, see what happens.

[marcellis]

zero_heroes: Block it, see what happens.

Block what? Block the stats?
I'd rather not.

I like seeing what regions are downloading my music.

What I think is happening is one site that refers
downloaders, blocks its identity somehow.
I see the downloads. I don't know how they found
out about me.

Web stats are interesting. It's not the same as getting paid.
And I never know who is doing the downloading. But at least
I can see what region they come from, usually what city they
came from and what page referred them.

Now my #1 referrer is "Unknown".
My #2 referring page is in Russia.

[ZERO HEROES]

Block what? Block the stats?
I'd rather not.


You can't "block the stats". Turn it off, yes, but not block it.

What I was referring to is blocking anyone accessing your site from a referrer that you don't like or don't know who it is.

What I would do is set it up so that if anyone tries to download a song from your site that isn't already on your site, have them directed to the page first before they can download. You'd get more promotion and your song downloads would increase.

[marcellis]

Ah. Thanks.

"What I was referring to is blocking anyone accessing your site from a referrer that you don't like or don't know who it is."

I understand now. It makes sense.

But I'm not sure I want to do that yet. After all, they are downloading from my site. They're directed to my site. It's just that I don't know who's directing them there.


"What I would do is set it up so that if anyone tries to download a song from your site that isn't already on your site, have them directed to the page first before they can download. You'd get more promotion and your song downloads would increase."

I'll see if my web people can set this up. It's a good idea. It makes sense.

Thanks a lot for your idea. I wonder if it will cost me in terms of download numbers. But first I'll see if I can set it up.