# Yahoo! referrers - why don't they work?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-referrers-why-dont-they-work/107044>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 3, 2002, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-referrers-why-dont-they-work/107044 "2002-05-03T12:30:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2002, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-referrers-why-dont-they-work/107044/1 "2002-05-03T12:30:45Z")

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When visiting sites such as Yahoo!'s most emailed content site - [http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/mt/?u](http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/mt/?u) - all the links have referrers, eg they look like:

[http://rd.yahoo.com/Dailynews/mostpop/us/dailynews/\*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020503/ts\_nm/health\_babies\_beds\_dc\_1](http://rd.yahoo.com/Dailynews/mostpop/us/dailynews/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020503/ts_nm/health_babies_beds_dc_1)

I always get “Cannot find page” and have to delete everything up to the asterisk \* for the link to work.

Why is this? I’m using IE on Windows ME.

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**Author:** ![Church\_Key\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Church\_Key\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Church_Key_Kid)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2002, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-referrers-why-dont-they-work/107044/2 "2002-05-07T15:46:05Z")

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I don’t know if you are still having this problem… but I was having the same problem and did a search for your OP.

The reason is was happening to me is because [rd.yahoo.com](http://rd.yahoo.com) was pointing to 127.0.0.1.

Are you using some kind of ad-blocker? If so, that is why this is happening.

To fix it, open up c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in Notepad and search for [rd.yahoo.com](http://rd.yahoo.com). Then just take out the entire line where that is mentioned and save.

Then close and reopen your browser. Voila! 🙂

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**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2002, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-referrers-why-dont-they-work/107044/3 "2002-05-07T19:03:19Z")

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I am not on my work pc now, but I will try to do this tomorrow. I was using pop-up stopper, I don’t know if that was interfering with it. I will try what you say and post back on the results. Thanks very much for the info!