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Turn off all adz and wait for the ozone layer to fix itself before turning them back on ??
Switch to a different ad provider? Clearly they're not all doing this, this isn't the first time this has happened is it. Do they have a particularly high ecpm or something?
I got caught out by this this morning, while sitting in an NHS waiting room with my daughter. Not cool.
.. take me somewhere else without my permission..
That's why safe words were invented
Wife looked over at just the wrong moment, had a lot of explaining to do. Glad this thread exists!
Good point - can we keep this thread going indefinitely?
Her: WHY T.F. ARE YOU LOOKING AT THAT????
Me: I'm not honey, I was just arguing about racist language on singletrack and it "redirected" me.
Her: ?
Me: No, really, it's a thing - look there's thread about it....
^ doesn't explain why you were abusing yourself at the same time though!
Wish I had this excuse the time my wife *DID* find porn on the iPad
🙁
Please keep reporting issues direct and/or on this thread.
Still redirected to cloudatt just now.
Is it worth reporting non-occurrences? If it's relevant and / or helpful, I've not had a single one of these redirects.. viewing on Chrome on a windows remote desktop.
It's affecting Android mobile I think.
Been fairly quiet today but just had another multi popup event, phone buzzer going off and difficult to exit browser as there are so many.
My (ie, the OP) event was using Chrome on an iPhone 6
Still doing it...........
Didn't even click on a link, it does it when I walk away from my PC. And it does it across all open STW tabs, are you sure it's ad's not the site as a whole?
[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2940/33443927351_4331337f45_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2940/33443927351_4331337f45_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/SXjSr6 ]Untitled1[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/7614571@N05/ ]thisisnotaspoon[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2929/32758532203_c947426fb3_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2929/32758532203_c947426fb3_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/RUL3kn ]Untitled[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/7614571@N05/ ]thisisnotaspoon[/url], on Flickr
Has the site been compromised?
Didn't even click on a link, it does it when I walk away from my PC
Yes that was the same for me - I didn't click on an ad (at least not that I was aware of). I had been looking at the screen, looked away for a few seconds then when I picked it back up it had redirected to the Bangaholic splash page.
Has the site been compromised?
All your data are belong to us.
I got an unsolicited invitation for adult entertainment through this site today. She looked nice, but thought it best to get rid of her and run Malwarebytes et al.
It's definitely ads. Desktop is a first. They are being slippery bastards.
OK. Here's a bit of insight. The ad networks are notorious access points for ads with malicious code in them that spawn pop ups and redirects. They are generally not targeted (as that costs money) so they are a scatter gun approach. They are being paid for by someone - that's how the advertising works. But the perpetrators are not prepared to spend a lot of cash on them as a campaign and so they tend to hit websites that run ads with a very low yield (or CPM - cost per thousand). In short, when the network market is cheap and cpm rates a very low, they tend to take that as an opportunity as they can spread the ads further for less money ie. they can buy the maximum number of impressions across the networks for very little money. Right now the market rate for remnant, non targeted or filler type ads is very low, especially on mobile. One reason for the downturn in rates is that a lot of major brands are pulling out of advertising with Google right now until google better matches ads to content (You may have seen in the news that the BBC and M&S have recently pulled all their ads from the Google exchanges). The result is a big crash in CPM rates in the networks. The unscrupulous advertisers with their popups and redirects are taking advantage of this and buying up a lot of very cheap inventory.
We use 4 networks (There are thousands) that we have learnt to trust. One of them has been compromised and I have removed them from our ad configuration on mobile. They are looking into tracking the source down and fixing it. Until; I'm sure they have they won't be supplying any ads to our mobile site. Judging by the reports above they may still be coming through one or more of the other networks too.
We have two types of networks running on our site. There's the type that allows us to set a floor price for ads. One way I check they aren't the source is by raising the floor price to a silly high figure that effectively excludes the bad ads as they can't afford the price anymore.
Then there's the 100% fill networks that take every ad our system offers them but the market controls the cpm rate. We use two of these types of network. One I've deactivated and the other is Google Adsense, who are generally very secure.
With the screenshots above that show the redirect now on a desktop browser I'm going to start the process of elimination again as I did with mobile but on the desktop ad placements.
And I haven't turned off the ads for two reasons. One is the obvious one - we need them on to pay the bills the other is because if I turn them off I won't know if I've fixed the issue or not.
And one last bit of information for those of you interested. This links to an illustration of how complex the programmatic ad network system is. Of all the names and companies on this diagram we use 5 of them in our setup.
[img] 
[/img]
Please keep reporting issues and I'll keep hunting.
fnaar fnaarBangaholic splash page
Amusingly, STW is now top of the results page for 'Bangoholic'.
Good luck guys, nasty little bug to track down.
All that explanation doesn't really explain why it's only this site I have problems with. I'm giving up using the site on my mobile now as it's just problem after problem and very unintuitive to use (multi-clicks etc). Only accessing here from my PC and with the naughty add-on. And yes I could go for a P but why would I pay money to a place that runs it's site so badly? You're very open in saying that the ad revenue from us lot using this forum helps keep your coffers full to support the mag but then the site is old, crawling with problems and has the whiff of gasping it's last breath. The world of online advertising is about to go through a massive shift change where quality is far superior to quantity, this place in it's free form is absolutely going in the wrong direction. I'm not slagging you off purely because you have issues but if you don't have the facts about how I/we feel then you cannot deal with the problem.
All I'll add is that it's very embarrassing to have the pron pop-up happen in Specsavers, complete with near-the-end sound at full volume!!
Mark - despite all the piss-taking, you truly have my sympathies. As the recent BBC/CH4/Google thing shows, the connections and inter-dependencies are getting too much for even the largest corporations to deal with.
I don't visit that many other sites, so I'm not aware as to whether or not they've been similarly compromised (and, TBH as a subscriber to this one I'm not seeing the problems either) but feedback in this thread and others suggests otherwise. That must surely raise some questions too.
Anyway, good luck getting it sorted.
It isn't only this site. It really isn't.
Ah well, like I say, you have my (almost) undivided attention so I'm only going on what's been said here #fakenews 🙂
They are generally not targeted (as that costs money)
I don't fully understand how this works of course, but would that imply that people who have the "don't track me" type privacy settings configured are more likely to see the cheap adverts and therefore more likely to be affected by the rogue ones? Is that perhaps why some folk said they hadn't had an issue?
(You may have seen in the news that the BBC and M&S have recently pulled all their ads from the Google exchanges)
The Guardian has as well (I didn't know about the other two)
All that explanation doesn't really explain why it's only this site I have problems with.
Presumably because as Mark's said there are "thousands" of advertising networks and the current issue is being caused by one of them.
I assume also that the more reliant a site is on advertising as a source of revenue, the more adverts you're likely to be served to make ends meet. Conversely, the more users there are paying for content, the less necessary it would be to have lots of adverts.
Mark - despite all the piss-taking, you truly have my sympathies.
Good to see you getting back to being a team player. All that whining wasn't helping anyone.
Gotta keep in with Mark for when we all get our free Santa Cruz Stigmatas at the Secret [s]Policemans[/s] Mods Ball.
All that explanation doesn't really explain why it's only this site I have problems with.
I don't have issues with this one but others I've visited, some recent, I have had. No I can't recall recall them off the top of my head but I think one was a local paper.
It isn't only this site. It really isn't.
Sorry, but its the only place I get it.
And i have had none although i often have ads for single Asians but they are just embedded
the only place I get it.
Same here. Isolated to STW.
Only place you get the ad or only place you get some action?
Been all good here for some time . So if nothing else the frequency of redirects has lowered.
Even the sodding holiday Inn redirect has ****ed off.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/22/resurgent_ramnit_malware/
Hmmm, is this anything to do with it I wonder?
-chill guys, wait to hear if it is before ya panic-
New one this morning.
getting re directs away from here, thankfully to a 404 but i believe its because its through fortinet and its blocked at work.
scary stuff. Can email screenshots if required. Will stop giving my phone to my daughter now just incase....
Just had a barrage of redirects that eventually crashed chrome. On a Samsung galaxy phone.
Running Firefox on Windows 10, just got a redirect to this as I loaded the forum page (cookies had expired so was not logged in).
[URL= http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff167/LukeBurstow/oldstuff/Capture99_zpsybvvqs9t.pn g" target="_blank">
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff167/LukeBurstow/oldstuff/Capture99_zpsybvvqs9t.pn g"/> [/IMG][/URL]
Same here - STW on mobile is a bit of a 'shall I shan't I' nowadays. The embedded ads want to send me places, open apps etc. I swear sometimes I press 'Cancel' and it does it anyway! I know STW needs to make money, but these kinds of redirect apps are a bit of a step too far I think - need to have a word with your ad server. Please can we have the desktop back on mobile? I actually prefer that anyway. We've all got big screens nowadays you know...
Oh and yes STW is the only place this happens unless I foolishly open some click bait news story, which thankfully I do way, way less than STW mobile.
Site is basically uniusbale for me on Android now, can;t load the forum page without a redirect, popops, vibrating phone, all sorts of nonsense.
Not much porn though, which I feel is testament to my character.
benpinnick - Member
Please can we have the desktop back on mobile? I actually prefer that anyway. We've all got big screens nowadays you know...
+1
Site is basically uniusbale for me on Android now, can;t load the forum page without a redirect, popops, vibrating phone, all sorts of nonsense.
For now I'm using opera with ad blocking turned on. Useable again - loads 5 times as fast, no stalling while it waits for an ad to load, no redirects, hijacking or porn.
I would recommend that. Will happily switch back to normal browser and not blocking when the site can deliver a normal experience again.
Just scrolling down this thread:
http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/garmin-edge-800-is-comatose-advice
And got re-directed to this page:
https://oibiicomicbookdb.org/9853265823870/1491232091548657/FlashPlayer.hta
Not a new tab, but direct from the STW page to this link in the same tab.....pretty sure I didn't click on anything while scrolling.
2nd one today, but different to the link it took me too earlier.
And another one....
A direct jump to this link while trying to navigate to a new thread within STW.
More worrying than the last one because it came with a pop-up prompting me to download the Adobe update. It clearly wasn't a link to adobe....unfortunately I cancelled the dialogue box before taking a screenshot.
Here's the link it too me too....
screenshot:
[img][url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2940/33466266700_357aeee72c_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2940/33466266700_357aeee72c_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/SZin9h ]STW Direct Link Jump[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/me96kka/ ]STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr[/img]
immediate redirect on opening the stw url to http://aldie.detb.gdn/JUM932surveyrotatorAUDIOGB.html
Firefox 52.0.2/Windows 10.
I really shouldn't be having to bookmark a bland login page to avoid malware etc when I load a site like stw.
I've got a 'P' and all that so I only run the risk once a day but if I were relying on advertising to pay for my site visits I'd be doing stuff we can't discuss on here.
Today's takeover was brought to me by
stw is the only site it ever happens on and surely they all use the same ad servers so why is stw so vulnerable?
I wouldn't bother keeping reporting this issue, it's clear they couldn't care less.
Agreed. Just block it until resolved.
We care a LOT and we spend a lot of time working behind the scenes on this stuff.
Since this thread started I've deactivated 2 networks from our stack, which has cost us thousands.
Thanks Mark - I think the biggest issue is that people don't understand why stw is the only site they see this on?
You must use the same ad networks as other sites delivering similar volumes of pages/ads but no-one on here reports having this issue elsewhere.
The ad networks must also be trying to resolve this - they lose money too when you switch them off?
Well I think the situation becomes clearer with some more context. I doubt any regulars on here realise what traffic levels we get on the site. STW is in the top 0.1% of ALL websites. We recently just exceeded 1.7 million unique visitors a month and we deliver just short of 8 million page impressions. Almost 90% of that traffic is here in the forum. There are few other sites that you will visit that deliver that kind of traffic and it is that traffic that means we deliver in excess of 25 million ad impressions a month.
There is no way that it's possible to eliminate all the rogue ads that infect the programmatic ad network and by pure statistical probability you are going to see ads that don't behave on a site that relies on them for it's income. These ads DO affect all other website that use the networks and it really really is not JUST us. But if you are a sample size of one and it happens to you then of course you are not going to believe that - that's perfectly understandable.
If anyone would like to do any of their own research our current ad stack is as follows.
1 - Direct Sold Campaigns to the bike industry (Animated gif or jpg only)
2 - AOL Marketplace (High quality, high cpm only campaigns that we set the minimums for)
3 - Criteo (Retargetting network - shows ads based on where you have recently been - experiment: Go to John Lewis website.. browse a few pages then come back here)
4 - Cliques Network - Currently delivering a single campaign from bike wear company Velocio)
5 - Sovrn - programmatic network taking approx 10% of the available inventory
6 - Sortable (restricted to desktop only) & Google Adsense (Mobile only)
The last level (6) is our 100% fill programmatic network and they mop up the remaining impressions that the higher networks don't want. It's this level, that pays very low rates (sub £0.30) where the highest risk of infection comes from. The standard model would have us use multiple networks at this level as restricting impressions to each is a way to drive up the cpm. However, this increases the risk of rogue ads so I monitor them and change them often. Google Adsense is our most reliable as it's Google, but even they get hit occasionally. The problem is they pay the lowest rates. I'm using two networks in our final stage of remnant delivery. The typical configuration recommended for maximum return on cpm would suggest we use 5 or 6.
The users who stand the greatest risk of seeing the bad ads are those that use up the inventory from the upper levels and end up logging enough page impressions to reach level 6. That means the heaviest site users are more likely to experience the problems.
Advertising cookies and tracking methods typically reset after 24 hours so if you experience a bad ad on your first visit to the site it is likely to be because it has been less than 24 hours since your last visit and so you are getting level 6 ads straight away.
None of this explains every scenario. The way the higher paying campaigns are setup means they may target certain types of users over others, which could mean some users progress through the stack quicker than others do. That's down to how you have used the internet, where you are and other demographic information that is filtered through the programmatic system. even time of day affects it, so personal examples you may have that counter this typical picture does not necessarily invalidate this explanation.
Limiting the number of ads displayed in total does have the effect of increasing the overall cpm and so one argument is to show less ads and therefore less level 6 ads and so increase the price they pay. This works but not enough to compensate and there is a significant drop in total income despite the higher price being paid. So it's not that simple.
Our stack is short. If I cut out all the level 6 inventory that would hit our bottom line hard enough to threaten jobs and it still wouldn't completely eliminate the problem. So, what I do is pick and choose and test to find the most reliable networks to slot in at the end of our stack and this is where I'm most active on a daily basis.
Last month I took Sortable out of our mobile delivery and it seemed to ease the problem. How do I know? Well on indicator is that this thread dropped off the front page for several weeks, which is why I appreciate the posts and reports on here. If you report an issue it will be noticed and it will direct my attention.
Cliques network is the latest network I am currently testing. They have a high quality system and setup and their rates are currently very high. They are taking only a low number of impressions currently and I'm working with them directly to increase that. As that happens then the remnant level 6 impressions reduce.. the instances of bad ads reduces and the overall rates we earn increase. everyone wins.
But knocking out all of the level 6 ads completely and everyone loses, including you guys, as the very existence of this site and the mag itself depends on this revenue stream.
So, please be assured that I personally take this all very seriously and the balance is very hard to get right. But it is a balance that takes up my time every day.
Thanks Mark - I appreciate the explanation and the actions you're taking to try an eliminate the problem. I'll report any further problems I see.
Would clearing cookies at the end of a session
a) make it less likely to get level 6 ads
and
b) give you more revenue as the ads delivered will be in the higher levels?
If you clear cookies then yes, you'll be put back at the top of the stack.
I've not had anymore since my screenshot above which was a week ago...
Just had a redirect to a "Critical Chrome update" that was clearly spam/virus redirect. Shut it down before a screenshot, but on a clean, AV protected laptop, running Chrome. No other sites were open at the time.
Just re-read Mark's last detailed description...due to the design of the responsive design and the fact the front page of a multi-page site loads and you need to visit 2 pages to get to the last page, the ad impressions are growing due to this...easy to see why the level 6 is so common (and also why the ad revenue is so high).
I've had a few redirects to Google Play store for games but not frequently.
This last week ive had multiple redirects to ONE by AOL??? from here.
Just had a redirect to a "Critical Chrome update" that was clearly spam/virus redirect. Shut it down before a screenshot, but on a clean, AV protected laptop, running Chrome. No other sites were open at the time.
Had the same thing twice in last 2 days whilst trying to log in on android phone. Full scan afterwards just in case.
Ihave had redirects on my phone as well - clearly malware - its the old " your phone is infected with a virus click here to clean it"
Sorry I don't have the name of it.
[quote=Mark ]we deliver in excess of 25 million ad impressions a month.
That explains your Ferrari 😉
Just been reading through this thread for the first time, and I've seen none of the issues at all on my phone or tablet.
Both are iOS, one the current flavour of iOS 10, the other, my pad, iOS 9, and while I don't use STW quite as much as I used to, longer working days being responsible, I've had no redirects, huge ads taking over the screen, or any of the other shenanigans, particularly porn; not that it would bother me particularly, but I'm perfectly capable of finding my own, thank you, and I use a different engine for that...
Maybe my use of DuckDuckGo instead of Google as primary search in Safari has something to do with it.
I've had loads of redirects in the last few days, mobile (chrome on android). Bullshit virus cleaning, you've won an iPhone, that kind of thing. Don't know how to screenshot sorry, so not got details.
Same here over the last three days
Lots of spammy re directs here too.
Android with Chrome
I just won an iPhone too, such a lucky site this.
I was also getting the wyranamb.net redirect on Android, on14-15th.
Not today (16 June)
Me as well - tuesday and wednesday - android phone
The only redirects I've been seeing are the Chrome Updates one but I get it pretty regularly; I'm using Chrome on Windows 10. Oddly Bitdefender (which is usually pretty good) doesn't seem to object. I've not had any issues using Chrome on Android.
Lots of redirects in the last few days, you've won an iPhone, upgrade chrome sort of crap.......in fact, I've just had one while writing this and had to start again. Woe is me.
Getting wyranamb a lot here, too.
Keeps trying to download some pork apk file on my android
I had a Chrome updates one today, but with a spurious URL which quite clearly wasn't from Google... Didn't touch any links. Wasn't touching anything at the time. Hands away from mouse and keyboard and it just redirected.
Bordering on unusable at the moment.
Yep...getting it now when going to log in page, which as I get logged out a million times a day is not great.
Bordering on unusable at the moment.
Theres a real danger this issue could push up UK productivity.
I had it take over my screen and vibrate on my Android phone on Saturday. Manged to close the webpage.
First and only time it has happened to me
Edit: wyranamb.net - Are you lucky?
Here's a question
The likes of Pinkbike and MTBR are covered in ads yet I never have a problem browsing those sites with spam etc, plus they're all bike specific adverts rather than the non-bike ads that pop up here whenever I get logged out constantly.
What are PB and MTBR doing right?
Loads of won an iPhone redirects here too.....and the odd chrome upgrade one too (think that happened on my laptop actually!) Others are on my android phone.
We are going to be making some changes to the types of ads that are shown on the site over the next few days with a view to limiting the influx of these ads. Starting on the front page. We are targeting mobile browsers first but looking through the network setups we have to see if we can put up some more barriers to these types of really crap ads.