[Spam Huntress] I found this one in my logs: Short URL And yes, it was an affiliate URL, spamvertized. The owner says outright it’s to hide affiliate links.
Some related posts from Technorati and Google.
[Spamhuntress.com] Spam Huntress » Referrer spam: I got a slew of referrer spam from an outfit who’s trying to SELL people the secret behind promoting through blogging! I don’t get much referrer spam these days, so running this down was a worthy cause.
[Epcostello.net] ed costello: articles and essays: Blocking Referer Spam: I realized that it would be easier to block by the patterns that the spammers use,as well as by the referrers being spammed.Since one pattern is to request a resource which isn’t on my server at allI check to see if the hostname matches my hostname.If the hostname doesn’t match, then I bounce the request.I’ve tried a couple different methods of bouncing requests...you can fail them entirely, serve up a nasty comment or two, or redirect the request.
Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Referrer Spam, Targeting Spam