To answer my own question...

ecuador — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:46:39 +0000

It is indeed the google ads that load from CNET affiliate sites.
For example go to download.com, do a search and you will see google ads loaded from bwp.download.com.
The fact that CNET has many popular sites explains why you get 4% of your traffic from there (and I get 9%).

MScott — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:55:56 +0000

dunno if this thread is still active, but I have noticed the same page referrer recently on my own website. I also use google adwords and I use the google affiliate network (ask.com, howstuffworks, etc).

The bwp.downloads.com referrer accounts for about 4% of my hits and considering it is a recent phenomenon that's kind of significant.

Anyone know who this referrer is? Anyone...anyone...Buehler?

ecuador — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:44:58 +0000

No, the log is private and the hits seem legitimate (ip's point to various isp's all over the world etc).
E.g. (private parts replaced by XXX)

XXX.cable.casema.nl - - [11/Oct/2006:01:57:54 -0400] "GET XXX HTTP/1.1" 200 5511 "http://bwp.download.com/search?&nodeid=11138" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

We do have google adwords, so I would be worried of click fraud, but I cannot understand how it could be related.
Thanks!

megamoose — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 20:45:28 +0000

I have heard that sometimes people post fake refers to either get another site in trouble or to add to a websites page rank. If google or the public have access to your logs then it'll just increase the sites PR if its an active link. (apparentl)

~~Mark~~