Bryan Olson
2/28/2008 2:33:00 PM
rodmc wrote:
> Probably a silly question but I am writing a CGI script which need to
> check the referring URL, can anyone provide any pointers? I have
> looked at URLLib2 and a couple of other libraries, but am slightly
> confused.
When you say, "check the referring URL," what are checking about
it? Do you just want to know from where your users came? C.l.p is
one of Usenet's more helpful groups, but you have to clear and
exact, or we're likely to correctly answer the wrong question.
One reason that web sites check referring URL's is to try to
ensure that client went through the site's intended path. The
site might want to make sure users saw the terms-and-condition,
or stop other sites from "deep linking", or prevent so-called
"bandwidth theft". In these cases, checking the referrer is a
weak solution. There is a much better method based on cookies,
which all the popular browsers now support.