when did you employ ed and my tips?

I got serious about combatting them at the beginning of Sept. That's when I installed the latest version and used your trackback directory change. But I had removed the stats link from my blog several weeks before that. The referrer spam was useless to them, but I kept getting bombarded until a couple of days ago.

I'm guessing that maybe your website was re-indexed by whatever search engine the spammers were using to get their target list from and because you made the anti-spam changes your site ceased coming up for them.

That is a total guess but makes some sense I think.

Near as I can figure they're like locusts: they come in huge waves devouring everything in their path. Assuming you survive you won't see another one for a while. That's pretty much been my experience. It's possible that a couple of hacks have given you some major victories, but don't be fooled into thinking the lack of spammers will last forever.

I wonder if you just saw a referer hit from these forums? In other words, are you getting any referer traffic at all? If so then don't worry: the spammers will be back. If not then somewhere along the line you killed the ability to get referer traffic in general. Oopsie!

Yep, I am still getting referrers. I figured the tricks worked. I also trust that they aren't done with me yet, they'll be back.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm glad that they're gone for now, but was alarmed that they just instantly disappeared.

Thanks,
Chris

lenwood wrote:

But I had removed the stats link from my blog several weeks before that. The referrer spam was useless to them, but I kept getting bombarded until a couple of days ago.

I took about two weeks to see referrer spam reducing after removing the stats pages as explained in the [url=http://b2evolution.net/man/2004/12/29/control_referer_spam_howto]How to control referer spam hits from search engines[/url] documentation page.

First, search engines have to index all your blog's pages, then they have to update their index. That takes a while. Finally, spammers have to update their own database to take that modification into account.

But as EdB explained, spammers appear to attack by waves... Maybe are there some holydays where "your" spammers live?

All the other tips, tricks, hacks and plugins are also welcome.

When I go to the Antispam tab and try to request an update I get error 400, file not found. Does this require a seperate package, or is there some setup I failed to do?

kmoffat wrote:

When I go to the Antispam tab and try to request an update I get error 400, file not found. Does this require a seperate package, or is there some setup I failed to do?

Yes, you failed to read the [url=http://forums.b2evolution.net//viewtopic.php?t=5934]Remote error: Didn't receive 200 OK from remote server[/url] announcement.

I most certainly did!

Thanks.