I use cPanel on my server and there is a section for raw server stats called Awstats & Webalizer. Both stats show slightly different data, so I compare them every so often for anything that may require further attention.
In Awstats, one area of concern was the section ‘Links from an external page’ that contained a tremendous amount of websites that where from Russia (.ru). When I attempted to view by visiting the listed sites, there was no obvious placement (or within the source code) where my domain existed. Strange?
In researching Awstats, I came across a forum post where a couple of people where discussing the very same experiences that I’ve encountered. Apparently, this is known as “referring spamming”, where some sites use robots that simulate visits by the user; read more..
Referering Spam is a technique that sends fake referer URL to your website, that points to the site the spammers want to infiltrate. Thus allowing the spammer to finds it’s way into your stats directory.
Since I’m using cPanel, there exists mod_security Module in the EasyApache; read more..
ModSecurity 2.7 Available; read more..
Need help understanding Awstats?
Here is a pretty good knowledge base article, explaining Awstats.