Morgana wrote:emk wrote:It's going to different pages, using different browsers, and there are no HTTP referrer fields telling me where it's coming from.
Is that weird? No referrer field (I assume that means link)? Especially when it's going to different pages and not just the main page or a particular thread/post?
The HTTP referer (originally a misspelling of referrer) is an HTTP header field that identifies the address of the webpage (i.e. the URI or IRI) that linked to the resource being requested. By checking the referrer, the new webpage can see where the request originated.
In the most common situation this means that when a user clicks a hyperlink in a web browser, the browser sends a request to the server holding the destination webpage. The request includes the referer field, which indicates the last page the user was on (the one where they clicked the link).
Referer logging is used to allow websites and web servers to identify where people are visiting them from, for promotional or statistical purposes.
Basically the lack of a referrer field means that our server cannot tell where the traffic originated. For example, if I make a link to the BBC here, and our server does give out a referrer field then the BBC can track statistics which say this page was linked to LLORG and X people clicked it.
This raises a number of privacy concerns, and as a result, a number of systems to prevent web servers being sent the real referring URL have been developed. These systems work either by blanking the referrer field or by replacing it with inaccurate data. Generally, Internet-security suites blank the referrer data, while web-based servers replace it with a false URL, usually their own.
It could be whoever has linked to us has blanked the field before sending. It might be that we are simply falling victim to "The slashdot effect".
Slashdot effect
The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller website, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily become unavailable. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic which would result from the technology news site Slashdot linking to websites. The name, however, is somewhat dated, as flash crowds from Slashdot were reported to be diminishing as of 2005 due to competition from similar sites. The effect has been associated with other websites or metablogs such as Fark, Digg, Drudge Report, Imgur, Reddit, and Twitter, leading to terms such as being "farked" or "drudged", being under the "Reddit effect"—or receiving a "hug of death" from the site in question. Google Doodles, which link to search results on the doodle topic, also result in high increases of traffic from the search results page
