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
-
Where are redirect.viglink's coming from??
I am getting redirect . vigilink links my blog clicks and I don't use the Viglink affiliate program. I have no idea where these links are coming from or how to get rid of them? I was told my another company that I have affiliate links with that they are overriding their affiliate links.
Affiliate Marketing | | TheFearlessForeigner0 -
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 -
Looking for a nice way to add an amazon affiliate store to my site
We are often asked what our favorite toys, books, resources, etc, are and I want to make a page(s) with our top resources that is a nice clean amazon affiliate store. Are there are good resources anyone knows of to do this? (I'm using a wordpress blog by the way....perhaps there is a plug in?) Thanks.
Affiliate Marketing | | NoahsDad0 -
In what ways would an affiliate site be okay with Google?
I know Google has slammed affiliate sites hard. But affiliate marketing can be a real business and had an idea for one, but I would like to know if ALL affiliate sites are looked at as evil in Google's eyes, or if it's just those with thin and duplicate content in the product descriptions. I know they want brands to come up ahead of affiliates of that brand, and that makes sense. If I sold Acme Widgets products, Acme Widgets itself should come up ahead of my site. But what if the site sold widgets in general, with the term widgets not a branded keyword? If all product descriptions are unique and well-written content, on a site that is high quality, would it still be downgraded by Google just because there are affilate links in it? I guess overall the question could be boiled down to, are affiliate sites hit because they have horrible content or because they have links to affiliate programs in them?
Affiliate Marketing | | bizzer0 -
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 -
Shopping comparison site referral traffic growth
Over the last 12 months we have been working with affiliates and seen excellent traffic and revenue growth from this channel (golf market). Over the same period we have seen a massive (60%) drop in organic traffic and 40% drop in organic revenue. Our rankings are comparable to last year. However we are seeing growth in Googlebase traffic and direct traffic Is it the case that consumers are using comparison sites more that organic search queries. Is there any evidence to support this view if true? Having content on affiliate sites, could it be harming us organically (but as I say or rankings are comparable to last year - maybe a little worse since Panda updates). Confused? I am...
Affiliate Marketing | | cpdigital10