I'm using SiteMeter to track where these visits are coming from. SiteMeter is unlikely to register visits from bots, as it needs the visitor to run the SiteMeter javascript or load the counter image, which most bots do not do.

I'm confused about your statement that bots "do random searches and create bogus data about how people are finding their sites." It sounded like you were saying that bots are designed to create bogus data -- or somehow to lead people back to the bot makers to boost the bot makers' stats? Or do you just mean that bots, in their Internet explorations, inadvertently seem to be visitors to my site, so when I look at the data I'm collecting about my visitors, some of it is bogus? Since bots are generally designed to obtain rather than create data, I'm assuming you mean the later.

Sadly, based on my understanding of the technology, as well as on the actual content of some of these searches (most of which come in full sentences that I find frankly too creepy to post), I'm afraid that most of the visits I'm talking about are coming from people. And since I posted about this, there are more of them here today than usual... I hope some of them find the help they need.

~MPJ