Sneaky redirect happening on my wordpress site.
-
On my site, gosandiego.com I have a couple links at the top which directly link to another site. However, I noticed that when I click on the link, it seems to go to another site for a few milliseconds before being redirected to the correct destination.
It took a little while but I was able to take a screenshot of the sneaky redirect. It starts awin1.com/awclick.php...
I am fairly sure that awin1.com belongs to Affiliate Window, an affiliate marketing company much like Commission Junction but smaller.
I just had someone email about my site and said the link redirected on him too but his browser got sent to viglink.com
I was wondering, Has someone hijacked my site or has someone hijacked my browser or is it something else?
Thanks
-
Yeah that is strange. I'm stumped on that one myself. The info I'm finding on awin1, awclick.php, etc. is all kind of loose and not very helpful anyway. Very odd. I'll be curious to hear if you figure out why that seems to be inserted in between destinations for you.
Good luck, and if I come across anything else I'll post here as well.
-
Thanks for the info Todd. I've seen the comments from Kaspersky but that is in the case where the site links to awin1.com. Kaspersky does not like the 1 by 1 tracking pixel or something like that.
The weird thing is that the link goes directly to smartdestinations.com. Why is the click being rerouted through awin1.com?
Googling the "awclick.php" has led me to some further research. I'll report back if I see anything
I think my solution is to cloak the link but I don't know if it will work.
-
I took a look and I'm not seeing anything that says "hacked" to me. I'm assuming this is only happening for you when click specific links? If so it seems unlikely it would be an issue with your browser either (something you need to clean off).
I'm afraid I'm not an expert here but it seems clean to me. I did a little digging on awclick.php and it appears that some people have noticed odd behavior similar to what you are describing when clicking links to different sites if they have:
- Certain ad blockers installed
- Certain types of internet/computer security software installed
I'm not seeing what your seeing when I move through the links. Again, it doesn't seem malicious or like an issue from what I'm seeing.
Sorry I can't be more conclusive!
-
Sorry. I forgot to mention. Both links at the top do this while I am using safari.
If you go down the page, there is a subhead "Save more with coupon codes". Both links also exhibit this behavior. I am considering a redirect plugin but not sure if that would solve the problem.
I have also tried this in other browsers but they react too quickly for me to see if anything is happening.
-
This is the link text:
Save $20 on orders over $300: Use Code FALLFUN15
The coupon has expired but I'll leave it up for a couple days to make sure you can look at it. Thanks!
-
Hey Edkim,
Can you let me know the anchor text of the link you're clicking that is causing this? I'd like to check it out myself and then I might be able to help you out some more.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the right way to link to your main site?
Hi, we have a system for tracking the leads that comes from a specific affiliate website. each affiliate has a unique tracking code. not only for affiliates that work with us but also for the SEO team has an affiliate tracking code so our bosses can track the leads and traffic that come from the activity of the SEO team. this means, links towards our website look like: www.mydomain.com/?t_src=campaign&t=AFF&t_cre=links&A=371 www.mydomain.com/?A=371 I have few questions about this: 1. This is the right way to link to my company site? How dose google crawl those link? It's can harm the link value? 2. What is my option to show my boss all the traffic / leads that our seo team brings to the site trough Google Analytics? Hope to get your support. Thanks in advance.
Affiliate Marketing | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Can linking out to a weak site harm my sites SEO?
We have an affiliate that wants us to link to his site to help him get started. His website looks okay and is in the same niche as us. However, he has PR 0 and no Page Trust. We could work in a natural looking link in a news article, but there is no way he could be considered any kind of "authority" link. Can linking to his site harm us?
Affiliate Marketing | | theLotter0 -
Does Google look at Domain Registrar owner information when counting links into a site?
Question: If the domain registrar owner info is the same on two websites, will Google/other search engines discredit any linking between the two sites when calculating page rank? We have two company sites. One is our main ecommerce domain which we have been linking into from information domains in the past. We recently cut ties with the company that hosted them for us and wish to host them ourselves to preserve the inbound traffic. We are worried, however, that the traffic will be discredited now that we own both domains. Thanks for looking!
Affiliate Marketing | | tennisexpress0 -
Google Analytics Tracking Pixels for Third-Party sites???
Hello, Does anyone know if it is possible to track an event on a third party site and have it post back to your Google Analytics account? For example, I am sending traffic to a partners site and I want to know if that traffic I am sending them will hit a specific point of conversion (a sale) and I'm wondering if it possible to place a tracking pixel on their thankyou.html page that gets recorded in my google analytics?
Affiliate Marketing | | shawn810 -
Two Tier Internet, Bad Blogs and One page Affiliate Sites
Hi, I start a post on a popular internet marketing forum about how bad blogs - (i.e. the ones with one posts of over optimise spun garbage) - and the one page affiliate sites - trying to sell you something... (you know the ones) - were REALLY starting to annoy me and if/when something would be done by ISP's or Anyone really. Obviously google is aware of the issue with trying to push Google Plus to crowd source better search results. But with more and more sites popping up telling people how they can make money from having a niche website/page with adwords on it aren't we fast moving to a two tier internet.... How websites/pages exist purely to game search engines.... and will they ever disappear.... Sorry mini rant..... might even get some ideas for a blog post 😛 (not on a bad blog before anyone says anything)
Affiliate Marketing | | JohnW-UK0 -
Sub domains or micro sites
Hi All I am setting up a series of affiliate sites; each site will focus on 1 category of product and there will be no cross over (i.e. no 2 sites will promote the same type of product). I'm setting up approximately 40 and they will all share the same domain: product followed by brand name.co.uk. Because of the numbers I intend to get a dedicated server and create a 'parent' website which I was going to use as a blog to promote the individual sites. My question is: should I set them up as micro sites, or should I set them up as sub domains? Wanted to know which is the best method from an SEO point of view as all sites will be hosted and owned collectively so I appreciate that the link building between each site will be limited. Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | danielparry0 -
Link juice from my affiliates to my site
I'm setting up an affiliate program through 1shoppingcart. Even though I run 3 different websites, the way their program works is that I have to have 1 domain name that my affiliates get as their affiliate link, with their unique id attached at the end. I can give them multiple links that will redirect to various places on my 3 websites, but those original links that they put on their site will all be to just 1 domain. I'm wondering if I still get link juice to my sites even though the links are obviously being redirected? Does it depend on the redirection method? I was just thinking that getting hundreds of affiliates who run related sites could be a very good seo boost if they're all linking to my site, but I feel like it's going to be wasted because of this redirection thing. Hope this made sense. Thanks very much,
Affiliate Marketing | | philraymond
Phil0 -
Did Something Happen With Google's Algo On 06/09/2011?
Yesterday, June 9th, I wokeup and ran my rank checking software. My two domains that I have page one number one rankings for are solid as they have been for the last year. Before I went to sleep last night I ran the rank check again, and had lost all rankings. After researching into it more, I realized my entire domain name is deindexed. The site: search yields no results at all. The domain name has links from over 250 root domain names, is highly focused on one product and one keyword. The links come mostly from articles, comments, forum posts, press releases, and 3-4 articles that were posted talking about my website by other bloggers. The site has 60 pages, which I think (thought) was more than enough for such a tight focus. The domain is a good keyword match name that I paid a grand for. In webmaster tools it says my URLs are still indexed, however thats not the case. I tried searching in Bing, and Yahoo. Bing - DeIndexed. Yahoo - One page of the site indexed. I havent done anything black hat at all, which is ironic this domain was banned because its the only domain name links were built to using a respectable seo company. It runs on wordpress, and I had not added any new content in about 4 months. PR4, and the PR still exists in the toolbar and on the websites I used to check it. Also tried searching google.fr, google.ru, etc... to see if it was a complete deindex, and it is. Then used the multiple datacenter check - which told me my domain name was not listed in any of the DCs checked. It is an affiliate website, with one affiliate link on the homepage. I use a plugin to mask the link so it appears as /starthere/ rather than a long affiliate URL. There is ONE catch, this website is in the pharmacy niche. Now before you all go saying oh well thats why, consider my question. I dont sell anything illegal, nor does the affiliate program I promote. I collect traffic from people searching for a prescription drug and then recommend a herbal alternative. Something odd however, is that I have 5 websites like this. Each tailored to their respective prescription drug backlink wise, and then on site I have comparisons and explain the benefits of instead using one of the herbal products or OTC supplements from savon/walgreens whatever. The other 4 websites gained rank, pages 1, 2, and 3 for their keywords when they were previously on pages 15-20. No new link building to the other domains, I hadn't given them any focus due to other projects. The issue is the domain name which was banned was a real money maker with an aesthetically pleasing theme. Now its completely deindexed, and I dont know why. Despite the fact I am lost an income stream, I really would like to know why this occurred at all. I feel like I walked into my job, was fired and not told why. This isn't the first time this has happened to me, however previously it was my own fault because I used an affiliate template and it didn't occur to me 5k other people were doing the same thing. (earlier days before I learned more about link building and basic SEO). So, my question is what exactly happened yesterday? Did anyone else see an sudden change in traffic or rankings? Has anyone else experienced a complete deindex of their domain name, and if you have is this permanent or is google known for accidental / temporary removals during an update to their algo? I may share my link if it will help, however I prefer not to unless its in private. Also if someone has access to Matt Cutts directly so I can ask what I am doing wrong, or has any idea how to contact someone at google (other than a request for reinclusion) I am all ears. Its very frustrating to see a decision made to ban my domain name without so much as an email saying "we dont like you". All responses and opinions are welcome and appreciated!
Affiliate Marketing | | getbigyadig0