Strange link to c.statcounter.com

[moondance]

I am intrigued by a regular visitor to a Wordpress blog of mine and wonder if anybody can explain what might be happening.

This visitor is always shown as entering on the same page. The link to this page is c.statcounter.com/********/0/d052489f/1/ (The stars represent my project ID number..... I was not sure if I should include that here or not).

When I click on the link, it takes me to a black screen. It says at the top of the page that it is a GIF image, 1 x 1 pixels. Statcounter is invisible on this blog and I cannot see any icon that they could be clicking on.

I am slightly concerned by what this regular visitor might be up to. He/she never does anything else, apart from look at this link.... Please can anybody assist?

 

[moondance]

Does nobody have any possible answers to this, or know how I might be able to find out?

 

[webado]

It's a javascript disabled but image enabled robot.

 

[charlesdavis]

Block it

Why you are taking it seriously just select and block and you can warn him initially then go for block it.

 

[moondance]

Thank you both very much for your comments.

First of all, the reason I am taking this matter seriously is that I have had problems on another (Blogger) blog with one or more visitors who a while back managed to make it appear from the Statcounter logs as if they had hacked into my blog and were editing posts and settings. Fortunately, none of this was true..... although I think that they are still lurking in the background (but avoiding being shown in the Statcounter logs). My concern is that there is a possibility that the visitor to my Wordpress blog that I mentioned in my original post here might be connected in some way to the annoying visitors on my other blog - and I am concerned that if this was the case, then they might be up to no good. So that explains my interest.....

I am a female in my 60s who does not have a very extensive knowledge about these matters - and I am afraid that I am going to show my ignorance here.....

Webado, I am afraid I have absolutely no idea what a 'javascript disabled but imagine enabled robot' is, or why it would be visiting my blog. I would be really grateful if you could explain a little bit for me. Thank you.

Charles, please can you tell me how I would go about blocking this person? And how would I be able to warn them first (unless you mean talk to them via my blog)?

Once again, I am sorry I am so ignorant about these things. I find all this stuff very interesting though..... and I like to learn more about these things whenever possible!

Thanks in advance for any help you are able to give me.

 

[webado]

Most robots are javascript disabled.

This means they don't execute javascript. Hence their presence can only at most be detected by the image in the img tag from the Statcounter tracking code.

Most robots are image disabled - i.e. they don't "see" images at all - but some are image enabled, e.g. the Googlebot Image robot.

Robots of all kinds constantly crawl the web and visit every website out there.
Some are search engine robots, others have different purposes (some bad, some good).

 

[moondance]

Thank you very much, Webado. That is really helpful.

What you have said has prompted me to ask one further question, if I may? There have been several visits to my Blogger blog - and apparently also to the blogs of other people - from visitors from various countries. These visits do not show up at all in Statcounter, only in the Blogger stats. They are often shown as having visited 20+ pages. I have had many such visits, especially from France and Switzerland. Are these also likely to be from the robots you told me about? It seems odd to me that a robot would visit so many pages, but not the same number each time. They never leave links, by the way!

Thanks again for your time.

 

[webado]

For detection of a hit by a third party tracker like Statcounter, the visitor (be it human or robot) has to be third party image enabled.

A common security feature in browsers is to not allow third party images.
It might even be default setting at installation. This therefor prevents tracking by third party trackers.

Blogger visitor stats are collected from their own server, so this detection cannot be bypassed.

 

[moondance]

Sorry, I obviously didn't make myself clear! I fully understand that already.... I just wanted to know whether you are able to tell me if it is common for these robots to appear as if they are visiting (say) 22 pages.

What happened in my blog was that - for about three months or so - I had a sudden really big increase in viewing numbers, whilst all the strange fake-editing stuff was going on. Then they all disappeared, literally overnight! Now - apart from a few regular visitors whom I know and can identify, plus a few random surfers who stumble in - all my other visitors have 'gone underground', so that they now show up only in the Blogger stats. It has all been very strange and really freaked me out for a while, although I am used to it now and it does not bother me nearly so much! :smile:

 

[webado]

Yes it's common.

More and more people ensure they cannot get tracked by third party trackers.
It's a sign of our times.

But also more and more robots appear. Not easy to distinguish them because there are more robots that are not associated with any major search engine, so they don't get recognized as such either.