(Please excuse me if this is the wrong forum. I tried to pick the most relevant one ) I was checking my stats today and looking at the links from an external page. Please note- I am a novice when looking at stats. These are what showed up at the top for links from an external page:

-
< pharmacy spamming links removed we really don't want to give them a link >

I realize I have no control over links, but they are all spam links. Just curious if I should be worried. Thanks for your help.

It's called referrer spam. Some stats pages end up being visible in search results and so spammers are trying to get a link back to their site. They're also hoping you might click the links to check out who linked to you so you end up visiting their site.

You shouldn't be worried. It's something that happens to many sites. I get referrer spam all the time. Don't ever click on the links. If you're curious about the page I'd suggest copying and pasting the link directly in your address bar.

You might want to check to see if your stats pages are visible in search results. Grab some unique text on the page or your stats page title and search for it. Wrap the phrase you search for in quotes. If your stats page is returned in the search results then it's publicly visible. Most likely it won't be though.

Thank you for your help Van Gogh. I have clicked on the links before, just a few. What sort of consequences arise from clicking on these links?

No real consequences. It's just that most of those sites aren't the ones you'd trust much. Imagine the links came via email. You probably wouldn't click on them. Same thing.

Mostly you can safely ignore all those links. As you build more traffic into your site the referrer spam ends up being less visible in your stats and I find it comes in waves. Usually it's one person trying out a new toy and spamming everyone.