[wp-hackers] ref parameters and fake url

[Stephen Rider]

On Mar 25, 2008, at 8:04 AM, Stefano Aglietti wrote:
> On italian forum i got a question about sites (ggoole too) that refer
> that there is URLs in some blog that are dangerous or spam, often they
> have the form:
>
> www.asite.com/?ref=spamsite.org&paged=10
>
> I'm not sure where the ref parameter is used on an old english forum
> thread there was a suggestion for a couple of line for .htaccess to
> clena this URL eliminating any ref but iI think it's not a good idea
> if ref has an use.
>
> I'm not sure what advantage spammer have having weblinks around like
> the one in the example, but it's annoying

Are you referring to the spam links that begin with (for example)  
google.com/?

A lot of spammers are running links through google references and such  
because people have learned not to click on links to unknown web  
sites; but... "Hey I use Google all the time -- that's not spam!"   
*click*

Another trick is www.google.com.blahblah.cz/ or such.  Non-techies  
don't always recognize that this is not Google. *click*

Hope that answers the question, highly off-topic though it is.

Stephen