Lately I'm getting a lot of traffic from Performance Systems International Inc. which is apparently an internet service provider (ISP). While Manta shows they have only one location (Utah), the 'visits' are coming from Washington DC.

Today, I'm getting more traffic from DC than from any other state... they seem especially interested in my college directories. I don't like it... it's skewing my data.

Anyone have an explanation?

Allen, Perhaps you're getting spidered by an out of ordinary spider. Does it use a unique useragent string? If so, most stat packages will allow you to omit certain useragents. Thanks.

Thank you comprug

While I don't know its unique useragent string (which I assume would be in the raw logs), I do know its IP range (38.0.0.0 - 38.255.255.255). I could instead, I suppose, just block this IP range... provided of course this outfit isn't providing me legitimate traffic. That is what I am wondering... is it, or isn't it?

Maybe it's some re-routing center (whatever those are called). The state in which they're located always makes it look like you're getting an unusually high amount of traffic from that particular state.

Maybe Jamie will jump in here too... he knows these things.

Anyway, this is the info I got from whois:

OrgName: Performance Systems International Inc.
OrgID: PSI
Address: 1015 31st St NW
City: Washington
StateProv: DC
PostalCode: 20007
Country: US

NetRange: 38.0.0.0 - 38.255.255.255
CIDR: 38.0.0.0/8
NetName: PSINETA
NetHandle: NET-38-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS.PSI.NET
NameServer: NS2.PSI.NET
Comment: Reassignment information for this block can be found at
Comment: rwhois.cogentco.com 4321
RegDate: 1991-04-16
Updated: 2005-10-05

RTechHandle: PSI-NISC-ARIN
RTechName: IP Allocation
RTechPhone: +1-877-875-4311
RTechEmail: ipalloc@cogentco.com

OrgAbuseHandle: COGEN-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Cogent Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-877-875-4311
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@cogentco.com

OrgNOCHandle: ZC108-ARIN
OrgNOCName: Cogent Communications
OrgNOCPhone: +1-877-875-4311
OrgNOCEmail: noc@cogentco.com

OrgTechHandle: IPALL-ARIN
OrgTechName: IP Allocation
OrgTechPhone: +1-877-875-4311
OrgTechEmail: ipalloc@cogentco.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-04-03 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

Allen, other than hurting your stats, is this IP Range giving you any trouble. The name "Performance Systems International" rings a bell, and I would be careful about blocking it. When I remember what its importance is, I will get back you you. Thanks.

If you'll notice in the whois information above that cogent (cogentco.com) has something to do with it. It is either the parent company or the 'provider' (in some manner)... see http://cogentco.com/htdocs/index.php

Ring a bell?

P.S. In reading the info on this website, their services are so broad I couldn't see in which respect it was affecting me.

Cogent is a large Telecommunications provider of T1 or T3 Connections. Many people use them, and I'm not sure if they are the parent organization, or just providing services to Performance Systems International.

FYI....I have found Performance Systems hitting every web site we have on on HMS on a consistant basis. No idea why but I know they do.

This has been happening for quite a long time.

It could be that they provide a proxy to the web similar to AOL on dialup. all my AOL hits show up as hits from Virginia. This could just be a dialup proxy. The unfortunate thing about proxies is its hard to tell what are unique visitors when you get one hitting your site alot.

That's probably it... I finally came to the same conclusion and quit worrying about it. These sort of things really screw up one's stats though, it's hard to tell what's going on. I've also noticed a big jump in the amount of spidering going on... now representing more than half my 'visits'. Surely my website doesn't need spidering thousands of times a week... and since it surely isn't the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc) doing it, having plenty of other websites to spider, then who the Sam Hill is?

If you can figure out the IP range, you could just filter them out of smarterstats. But of course that means you have to reimport to do this, which can take days. My Filter list is really long as I try to make sure only visible pages are calculated in my stats. I have alot of pages that server admin like tasks ( delete a photo, delete a comment ext.. ) Proxies suck.

Yes, I know about blocking IPs and I've already gotten HMS to block a bunch of foreign IPs. However, these spiders aren't that intrusive to be worth the trouble... at least they're not spamming my feedback forms. Who knows, maybe they're desperately looking for those I temporarily removed. Anyway, except for the 'real' search engines, seemingly most of these spiders got no business nosing around my website... they're like a bunch of stray dogs sniffing everything.

I wonder if there's a way to allow only real search engine spiders and ban all the rest? It would be a lot easier than hunting down the culprits one-by-one.