Hey,
Please go to http://www.templatebase.net/rn/rnhost.htm
It is directing to my site and i don't know why.
At first i thought it was trying to take credit for my site in their portfolio or something, but there doesn't seem to be anything on the site.
I noticed a few referrals from there, so went to check it out but cant find anything.

You can't list the directory http://www.templatebase.net/rn/ I tried that to see what else they had in there.

It just seems weird and I can't work out why they are linking to me..

I can't find any links.

I've also seen some pretty wierd sites linking to mine... without any visible links. Everything from Dutch real estate sites to Anime sites in Japanese.

Yeah I get the same thing..
I am getting a lot of car modding sites that are showing as referrals in my stats for some reason.
Really can't work that one out.
They are all seperate sites, but I can't find one link to my site on them.
Weird to have a lot of sites with the same content linking to me.
Always get unusual sites in my logs though, just forget about them now because I know there isn't really a link there

The only thing I can think of is that the template and design sites are trying to adapt a tactic to get traffic from blogs. Various sites - usually porn sites - will create temporary links from their site to some high-traffic blog that makes it referrers visible, in hopes of snagging either some traffic, a higher pagerank, or both.

Maybe these web-service sites are trying this to "advertise" to hosts: set up a page like this, visit their site a few times, the host visits along the backlink to see what's up...and maybe-just-maybe decides to buy something from them.

Of course, I could be totally wrong...

Wow, never knew people did that.

I didn't know they did it either.
Guess you have just given out your marketing secret for backlinks Lesli

That is a very good theory though..could be true, seems like a good tatic.

So why would car modding site link to sites, or seem to, when they have nothing to offer and if they are normal, legit sites?

Hmm, Odd. I have never seen that - ever. Is it the guy that designed your site that owns that template site?

Finally a reasonable explanation...

Ive been seeing ALOT of referrals from various "adult" types of sites - funny thing is, they are all hosted by the same company..

Was really starting to annoy me - Ive searched everywhere for an answer - and none of the experts ever gave me a reason that made sense... I cant believe the extent people will stoop too - but, that aside, thanks for the theory - it is appreciated...

Those links you posted john no longer work.

Hey John..you must have forgotten I was designing a flash header for you at sitepoint..Remember me know (tbase)I took down the links when the contest ended....Sorry for the confusion..I seen this thread in my server logs...

Were you linking to the site in your portfolio or something like that?