This article is first appeared on a great website called euhero.com.
Every single one of us have different reason on why we should fake our traffic source or referrer. The most common reason is that we don’t want other people to know where our traffic is coming from. If you are making money using blackhat methods then there’s a thousand reasons why you should fake your traffic source. We have also found out that Affiliate managers on affiliate networks have the tendency to steal your main traffic source for their own gain.
I mainly fake my referrer for security purposes and to improve privacy. Faking the referrer is more effective than blanking it. I have many experiences before where my affiliate manager asks me about my traffic source because they cant see it and they hate affiliates who blanked traffic sources. I understand why they hate it and lets be honest with ourselves, you know its a shady method if you are blanking it.
Who is this for?
I am writing this tutorial for black hatters who wants to fake their traffic source. This is because the tutorial will involve a lot of work to hide tracks and to appear legit which white hatters doesn’t need. So if you are a white hatter then just read it and find out how we black hatter fake our referrer and if you are a black hatter then lets get started.
1. A method on how to fake or spoof a referrer using wordpress
We need a wordpress base website for this to work because we will be installing an important plugin. Using your new wp website, Try to make a decent white hat type website.
For this example I will be using http://whitehat.euhero.com/ . No one will surely suspect this website as blackhat .
2. Change Permalink Settings to postname
This is an important step for this to work. Don’t skip this step.
3. Put your affiliate link in the post.
You should always post your affiliate link in the post you want your Affiliate manager to see. You don’t want your affiliate manager checking your traffic source and found out that there’s no link to refer to.
4. Install the CPA Redirector Plugin
Download CPA Redirector and install it in your website as a plugin.
5. Edit your website’s Header.php
In the top of your Header.php put the code
<?php if (prc_red()) exit(); ?>
Go to Appearance and click Editor
In the left sidebar Click Header (Header.php)
Last but not the least, put the code above the header.
6. Pick a magic number
In this example I will put “100612″ as my magic number. Note that when picking your magic number it should be 6 characters in length for security purposes. Don’t include letters and just put numbers that you can remember with ease.
To put your magic numbers go to Settings and click CPA Redirector
7. Enter your affiliate URL
In this example we will be entering http://www.stardrifter.org/cgi-bin/ref.cgi as our affiliate link for two reasons. First reason is that this website will show your referrer or traffic source in its page. Second, I can’t find another referrer tracker in the web. So I think that’s just 1 reason, really.
In the CPA redirector settings put your affiliate url on the text box. Make sure you will put it in accordance with your post that you want your referrer to be shown. In this case we will put our affiliate url besides Happy Lesbian Counple Review. Click Save Settings when you are finish.
8. You’re Almost Done ( ?mn=100612 )
Lastly you will have to add a few parameters to your link in order for it to work. In our example, http://whitehat.euhero.com/happy-lesbian-couple-review/is our link.
To work you will add ?mn=100612 in the end of your link. So now it will look something like this,
http://whitehat.euhero.com/happy-lesbian-couple-review/?mn=100612
Note:100612 is your magic number that you put in the settings.
Testing
Congratulation. You have successfully created a fake website referrer. Check your link if it is working. Let me know if you have some question and I will try to answer it as soon as possible.
Click here to test the referrer using this blog as the traffic source
Click here to test the referrer using facebook as the traffic source
Kudos
This script is from a great website called wpblackhat.com
Final Thoughts
Using this trick is quite handy if you are a black hatter or you just want to spoof your traffic source and this method hasn’t failed me so far. There are some few methods out their that can achieve the same effect but as you can see, this is the best and the simplest way to fake your referrer. If you have your own way on how to fake your referrer then let me know in the comment.
Thank you guys. Stay awesome!