Today I launch what is sure to be a popular new category, “Refer Madness”: a collection of weird crap I find by sorting through my Referrer logs.

For those not in the know, a Referrer log is a text file generated by a Web server that contains information about how people got to your Web site. For instance, if some generic Web surfer came to my site by typing “Andrew Lenzer” into the Google search engine window and following the link that Google proivded, an entry would be made in my Referrer log that read something like:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Andrew+Lenzer%22&btnG=Search

….and I’d know that they got to my site by entering the term “Andrew Lenzer” into the Google search engine.

The concept of Refer Madness is not original: I culled it from the Petting Zoo Web site, who apparently got the idea from Paul H. Henry. Imitation being the sincerest—and most expedient—form of flattery, I thought I’d keep the title and offer my own small contribution to the gestalt.

I’ve added a previous post on the subject to this category already, but I’d like to kick it off with a little something that popped up in my Referrer log yesterday.

Around 11:00 last night, someone from Australia visited the November 2004 archive for my site. They followed a link they had found via Google.

The phrase they had searched for?

“Swap underwear with sister”

I don’t make this stuff up, folks.

Stay tuned for more Refer Madness as it occurs.