Referer

Martijn Koster <m.koster@nexor.co.uk>

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Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 13:22:02 --100
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From: Martijn Koster <m.koster@nexor.co.uk>
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Subject: Referer
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Just to say a public Thank You to Lou Montulli for implementing the
Referer field in the latest Lynx.

I have changed my logging to list Referer (and "From") and I have
changed my logging analyser to maintain an inverse map of pages that
refer to my server, which lets me build up a better picture of my
users.

But more importantly, today it has allowed me to track down a
potentially annoying problem (where people accessed the wrong server)
with a simple grep through my logs. This sort of thing has cost me
hours to find before, and now it cost only seconds.

I hope other User-agents (oh dear, I'm starting to _speak_ HTTP now :-()
implementors will follow his example and don't ignore these simple
basic details in favour of the latest sexy user-interface features.

Looking at the User-agent field is interesting too actually. I've 
found 65 different versions of browsers in use, including ones
I've never heard of. 

In case you're interested, these files are available on 
http://web.nexor.co.uk/reports?*

-- Martijn
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