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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
International Re-sellers Scrapping My Site Should I be Worried?
We are a USA based company and we only sell direct to the US and Canada. However, we have partnered with other companies that are now distributing our products in other places like Australia and Mexico for example. These partners have scrapped our site and have used large chunks of our content to create a website for themselves on their intentional domains (ex.. .au and .mx). How concerned should I be about this? Should I reach out to them and require that they use rel="alternate" hreflang="x" or request the to stop? I have never had to deal with international SEO issues before, so any advice and direction would be appreciated!
Affiliate Marketing | | ChadC0 -
Affiliate site
I have a client I am doing SEO work for. He sells a system that helps people win at video keno. He sells a system for like $200 that shows people step by step how to play and win. Its a good site and he has a ton of verified winnings. My point in saying that, its not a fly-by-night system he wrote in his basement. I know - gambling, not easy for SEO. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. Wouldn't this potentially be perfect for affiliate marketing? He offers a good commission to whoever sends him traffic if they buy. If anybody could direct me to a resource or two that is reputable and would handle as much of the set up and management of this I would be very grateful! Thank you! Matthew
Affiliate Marketing | | Mrupp440 -
Amazon Niche Sites Or Adsense Niche Sites Or CPA Niche Sites for 2000$/month ?
Hello Seo Moz guys, I'm new in SEOMOZ Comunity but I have about 2 years experience in internet marketing. I build 5 websites with google adsense, all of them with about 50 articles, 1k+ backlinks, about 1$-1,5$ cpc, and in average 300 visitors per day. I monetize these sites only with google adsense. ( A LOT OF WORK I can say in manual way, I don't have automate or semi-automate tools for SEO-Link Building ) I didn't make more than 200$ per month and I want to make 2000$/month from online to be really happy. Can anyone suggest me a resource, a course, ANYTHING to improve my earnings? also, I want to change the business model from advertisements to affiliate marketing. I am in clickbank team and amazon asociates from 1 month and I didn't even make more than 30$ yet :)) Please please please, I want a good response, a respectable person to answer me 🙂 Thank you so much!
Affiliate Marketing | | Sebastyan210 -
Why were all of my Amazon sites deindexed?
March 22nd.. The worst day of my Internet Marketing career. I got the dreaded message: Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.ricecookerreviewz.com/ We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. Here's some interesting points: All of the content is unique and highly targeted to each product. Site is around 4-5 months old Every single one of my Amazon sites were hit.. How did they connect my sites together..? Why were they hit? List of some of my deindexed sites: http://www.inversiontablereviewshq.net/ http://www.breadmachinereviewshq.net/ http://www.ricecookerreviewz.com/ http://www.cooker-reviews.com/ http://www.ab-machine-reviews.net/ They are most definitely not, "thin affiliate sites". They have dozens of reviews, tons of articles, recipes, video.. Each site is like this.. I have started over, fresh content from my writers, fresh theme, fresh everything. But still, I would appreciate an answer as to what I'm doing wrong so that I can learn to not make the same mistake. Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | leetk3zzer0 -
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 -
New site setup questions
Working with a law firm with a well-established website that wants to build a separate website for their affiliate title insurance company. Currently, they only mention this company (and list a phone number) on their Real Estate page under Practice Areas. Although the affiliate company doesn't have a website, their location and phone number are listed in tons of local business directories. I'm currently working on a law firm site that was just built, and the process of getting that one listed in all the directories has been time consuming, so I'm guessing this new site will be much easier, since all I'll have to do is claim ownership of the current listings so I can add a link to the new website (and add additional info to make the profile complete). Would I be correct in assuming this will be a much easier link campaign? As for new site setup questions, they will obviously get some strong links coming from the existing law firm site. Should they host this new site on a different server so the SE's give more power to the law firm links? Is there really a value to reserving the new domain for 3+ years right off the bat? Any other suggestions welcome. Thanks.
Affiliate Marketing | | c2g0 -
Duplicate versions of pages on my site are getting indexed by Google...I think...
Hello, Our site has a very high bounce rate, which in part is down to a slightly old fashioned design, and also because we are a retailer and I imagine many visitors are simply quickly comparing prices and then leaving. However, having had a look in Google Analytics, I think that there is another issue that is contributing to a very high bounce rate. When I look in Content > Top Content, and order the pages in order of Bounce Rate, high to low, there are hundreds of instances of pages with just one or two visits in the last month, and a 100% bounce rate. The links are the same as our home page or pages on our website, but with extra letters and numbers at the end of the url. We have an affiliate scheme, which provides our affiliates with unique codes for the products they want to link to, and my guess is that these urls are getting indexed. I've looked at a few other links, and they go to translated versions of a page from our website, generated by Google. Other urls seem to have been generated by search results from our own search on the website. What worries me is that there are lots and lots of versions of the same page, with slightly different urls. I am by no means an SEO expert - I work for a very small company and am basically learning as I go - but I know that duplicate content is bad news. If the pages were on our own site, we could use 301s to redirect, but what about translated versions, or urls generated by affiliate schemes, or search results? Many thanks, Sophy
Affiliate Marketing | | sophycolbert0 -
Any issues with a simple php redirect?
Hi, I have used a simple php redirect for one site that it used for an affiliate link. Always used it, cant remember the exact reason I did but most likely to make the url pretty 🙂 On the crawl stats of this domain it shows as a 302 redirect - does this have any issues? What do people recommend for affiliate links? Cloaking? Tracking? There are a number of wordpress plugins available that seem to be aimed at affiliate links, any recommendations? I assume that they will still be classed as 302's. Any advice gratefully received. Thanks Jason
Affiliate Marketing | | JasonBrown650