Website log files – referrers
After you look at your general stats you want to look at your referrers. This is the section that shows how people came to your site. Most stat programs first show how many visitors came directly to your site without a referrer. I never look at this stat since there are so many ways that it can be skewed. Next there will be a list of sites that people were on when they clicked on a link to your site. When you visit these sites you will sometimes see that there is no link to your site. The reason is that there are ways to spoof a referrer. People do this for many reasons. Some people do this to get you to visit their site. Others do it because they hope to get a link to their site because you might have your log file stats live on the web. Looking at your referrers can help you find if someone is talking about you. If it is negative you can go and defend yourself if the linking site allows comments.
