Quick Question About Referal Links

[Ashley]

Okay, sorry for any spelling errors. Had some dental work done this AM so I'm still feeling a bit out of it. Anyway I had a quick question regarding referall links and I'm wondering if someone could clarify something.



One day on Chatting Time, not long after it was hacked (this was like 3 months ago) we were talking about a person whom we suspected may have had a hand in hacking CT. Unfortunately, accusations were flying out of this members mouth as well... or should I say, his keyboard?! My tech admin had posted a link from the person's forum because I didn't understand where he got the idea that the member in question was accusing both of us as to being hackers (Not true. I have never hacked a forum in my life, and even if it was someone I seriously despised, I still wouldn't do it!) my tech admin posted a link to a topic in our staff lounge were accusations about something or other were being made. He then told me something surprising: Don't click on the link here or else he'll (the member in question) will know where this is coming from. Instead, copy the link and paste it to your address bar in your browser from there. I did as I was told; I didn't open the link from the staff room, but copied and pasted the link in my address bar.



I could be screwing this up for backlinks, but what I don't understand is how a link can come from a private forum section.



Again, sorry for wording this stupidly. Had some dental work done this morning so I'm a bit out of it tonight.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

I can go in my cPanel or use Google analytics to see where people clicked a link to Off Topix. That's just one of the things website statistic counter/tracker softwares can do.

 

[Ashley]

I can go in my cPanel or use Google analytics to see where people clicked a link to Off Topix. That's just one of the things website statistic counter/tracker softwares can do.

So, assuming I'm interpreting this right, had I clicked on the link in our staff room, then the member could have very easily looked at the analytics log and found out that the link was being clicked from a forum that the public was not supposed to see? That kind of makes sense. I never did screw around with GA's before, even when I tried dinking around with the Cpanel myself back in the days when I wanted to try install mods on my own. Assuming I interpreted that correctly, that does make sense.



But, the person was demoted from the staff and later banned for bashing us and the forum. If he were to check the link through the Cpanel, would he honestly know where the link came from even the forum was restricted from the public eye?

 

[Evil Eye]

I could be screwing this up for backlinks, but what I don't understand is how a link can come from a private forum section.

PHP has a variable that contains the page URL you came from. http://www.vonfelten.com/blog/2007/06/05/referral-url-from-session-using-php/ I suppose the browser tells it where it was before...

Anyway, it's rather easy to store this variable (perhaps along with someone's IP). And because your browser doesn't usually know what's off limits and what isn't (cPanel certainly isn't off limits, things that are force a browser prompt for a password without any HTML).

Long story short, yes they would be able to see the URL. What info they can subsequently get from that is up to them.

 

[Ashley]

PHP has a variable that contains the page URL you came from. http://www.vonfelten...sion-using-php/ I suppose the browser tells it where it was before...

Anyway, it's rather easy to store this variable (perhaps along with someone's IP). And because your browser doesn't usually know what's off limits and what isn't (cPanel certainly isn't off limits, things that are force a browser prompt for a password without any HTML).

Long story short, yes they would be able to see the URL. What info they can subsequently get from that is up to them.

That almost sounds like a similar method one would use with abuse reports and stuff to find out if someone is being honest or not. I expect the same principal could comply with the hack accusation thread on the person's forum as well?



Sorry for all these questions. This is the longest time I've ever had a forum up and I'm still learning. Kind of embarrassing but that's how it is.

 

[Evil Eye]

That almost sounds like a similar method one would use with abuse reports and stuff to find out if someone is being honest or not. I expect the same principal could comply with the hack accusation thread on the person's forum as well?

I dunno, it's not exactly a foolproof way of doing things as it's quite easily avoided.