Affiliate URL Being Spyware Fucked?

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SUP3RNOVA

SUP3RNOVA

Goober Gay
Mar 5, 2007
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Ok I've never experienced this before with any of my pages, so hopefully a member here knows more about what I'm talking about.

I was at my girlfriends house and I told her about this landing page I just made blah blah, and she wanted to see it. So I go on her computer and load up Firefox, and type in my URL. It redirects to a similar URL with a clone page sending to the same affiliate offer (on a different network). I went to Google, searched my ad, clicked it...redirected. I went through a proxy and typed in my URL and it worked fine. Refreshed the cache/cookies and my page then loaded fine. Brought up a different browser and it loaded fine.

What the fuck is happening with it? Is it some sort of spyware thing? Because even if it works fine now, it still did redirect to a clone page, so somebody is doing something. And all this time I couldn't figure out why my landing page CTR was < 50%.

Any way to get rid of that shit? I may just have to get a new domain up there.
 


No, I just forced her to go from shitty AOL explorer to Firefox like two weeks ago, and she doesn't install things like that. Her computer is old as hell though and has had virus problems in the past.
 
I'm assuming that server-side nothing has changed, right? If you can access your LP normally from a proxy is sounds as if its geo-targeted. If it is spyware that's client side it probably won't matter if you change domains, so that may be a good way to diagnose it.
 
You should get the affiliate ID and report it to the network. Report them to their host and registrar as well saying they are copying your page.
 
yea, it's probably spyware doing the redirect...

it doesn't matter if she downloaded something like zango... there are TONS of installs including nasty little hidden serverside installs and others...

this has been happening for years in the adult industry... it's a pretty big problem, probably second only to content theft...

a lot of the affiliate programs don't really give a shit... even though it might 'officially' be against their TOS, and they might publicly admonish it... secretly a lot of them will accept spyware/installer traffic until somebody reports it...

in the adult industry, a lot of affiliate programs will set up house accounts and buy spyware/installer traffic to send to it to... if somebody reports them, they'll then 'terminate the affiliate' which is just means they stop using that house account and start using a different house account...

either way the affiliate program benefits in the end by stealing traffic from the honest affiliates...
 
Yeah, it's fucking parasite-ware. Bastards.

Essentially, the parasite knows what affiliate links look like and redirs them to their own account. It's one of the oldest problems with spyware / adware because it can be done so smoothly, and of course the consumer doesn't normally realize that your link is earning you commissions.

Tons of examples from over the years if you go on to ABW.
 
I would close your account with the network and open up a new one and start cloaking your links. That will get you a new crop of affiliate links. This is the downside of people seeing your affiliate links, there's lots of assholes that will use these shitty installs to steal your commissions. It's as bad as those jackasses who still do cookie stuffing.
 
beejeebers said:
I would close your account with the network and open up a new one and start cloaking your links. That will get you a new crop of affiliate links. This is the downside of people seeing your affiliate links, there's lots of assholes that will use these shitty installs to steal your commissions. It's as bad as those jackasses who still do cookie stuffing.
Click to expand...

The cloaking would help, but I don't think you need a new account. Remember, these parasites run on the user's machine.
 
It wasn't redirecting the affiliate offer, it was redirecting the actual landing page domain. So I got a new domain and we'll see what happens.
 
Download HijackThis(Google it) and run it on your GF's computer, and download anything that looks funny.

You're gonna have a goddamn huge list, since your Girlfriend has a computer from the stone-age.

Heck, post the log here so all of us can LOL about it here man! I'll point out which entries you should tick to delete.
 
It wouldn't be zango because they just pop open in a new window on top...

When you say "Refreshed the cache/cookies and my page then loaded fine" did you do that outside the proxy in the same browser? In other words, when you go there again now, through the AOL browser, it no longer redirects?
 
Andrew said:
It wouldn't be zango because they just pop open in a new window on top...

When you say "Refreshed the cache/cookies and my page then loaded fine" did you do that outside the proxy in the same browser? In other words, when you go there again now, through the AOL browser, it no longer redirects?
Click to expand...

Right. First I saw it redirect. Then I went through a proxy and it didn't. THEN I cleared the cache/cookies and it loaded fine with no proxy. This was all in Firefox.

It loaded fine in the AOL browser without having to clear anything.
 
My understanding is they're hijacking your affiliate id? So when the program sees that id from you it knows what you were selling and redirects them to the hijackers landing page with his affiliate id on it. So, if you get a new affiliate id and replace the old ones with the new one and try to cloak them, it'll make it harder for the hijacker script to find you.

I could be way off base, but that's my understanding of it..
 
More then likely something similiar to zango but not.

Lots of guys doing that sort of thing for years now
 
beejeebers said:
My understanding is they're hijacking your affiliate id? So when the program sees that id from you it knows what you were selling and redirects them to the hijackers landing page with his affiliate id on it. So, if you get a new affiliate id and replace the old ones with the new one and try to cloak them, it'll make it harder for the hijacker script to find you.

I could be way off base, but that's my understanding of it..
Click to expand...

No not my affiliate ID, my landing page domain.
 
I see, so they're hijacking you based on your url then. Somebody has found your sites, (probably using some stupid spyware bullshit program). Time to get some new domains, which is probably going to set you back as far as building up ad and keyword history for the affected campaigns.
 
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