Before reporting a bad ad on Neowin, read this..

[Pluto is a Planet]

I got redirected another two times this morning... First when scrolling down Neowin’s homepage, then trying to tap the latest post link for this thread in the thread list.

 

This was happening to me on another news site and they fixed it, I’m seriously considering getting remote debugging set up to catch these ads red-handed.

[Steven P. Administrators]

20 hours ago, Pluto is a Planet said:

I got redirected another two times this morning... First when scrolling down Neowin’s homepage, then trying to tap the latest post link for this thread in the thread list.

 

This was happening to me on another news site and they fixed it, I’m seriously considering getting remote debugging set up to catch these ads red-handed.

I reported it and blocked the advertiser url serving-sys.top yesterday because I think it is coming off AdSense (which I can block ads on) if you have more details for me to filter at AdSense, it would be appreciated, but if it is coming from our main advertiser (NetShelter) they will have to do their own investigating, based off the screenshot, which is all I have to go on.

 

Maybe contact the site who fixed it and asked which advertiser they blocked? It would help me  

[Steven P. Administrators]

Heh did some browsing via "US West" VPN on emulated iPhone 6 Plus (Chrome dev tools) on Neowin main + forums and haven't been redirected once yet.. this is also what annoys me so much about mobile ads, it seems Google doesn't care about thew quality and this redirect crap going on.

 

Anyway I did a search for the domain in the screenshot and there are a lot of reports for other sites getting redirects through the ads too, here's one example http://www.shaggytexas.com/board/showthread.php/169538-Apps-Ads-hijacking-mobile-shaggy/page10 I joined and asked the mod which network it is, hopefully I get a reply.

[+JHBrown Subscriber¹]

59 minutes ago, Steven P. said:

 joined and asked the mod which network it is, hopefully I get a reply.

Interesting title under your username.

[shockz]

On 12/15/2017 at 9:11 AM, Pluto is a Planet said:

Just got redirected as soon as I browsed to neowin.net, see below:

I can barely use mobile because of this. I can’t even reply to this post without getting redirected.

[Steven P. Administrators]

2 hours ago, shockz said:

I can barely use mobile because of this. I can’t even reply to this post without getting redirected.

Well the domain was blocked by our primary advertiser following my report from Saturday. I will ask them to stop AdSense through mobile (since they control the passback to AdSense).

 

I checked the link where another site said they identified the network and had blocked them, and it appears they too have not been successful, let me copy what the staff member said

Quote

It's javascript written into ads. It sets the original ad and then the script sends you to a site that has nothing to do with the ad. The recent one I found was attached to an Arlo Safe Security ad. The one before was attached to some ad for a Japanese cat drink bottle called Harajuku Fever. So the javascript is put into ads that are only seen on mobile devices. We rarely now get desktop redirects because they're easier to kill as I can find out exactly which code is doing the redirecting. That's hard to do on an iOS device. I'd like to set up a test link for the networks so if you guys are getting redirects, you can click on the links and tell us which one redirects. The problem is I've had minimal success getting these ads to redirect me when I go through the server that we set them up on. So it's possible it's some script that only shows itself when placed on a full website, if that makes sense.

I bolded the important parts.

 

Now this problem is a couple of years old and there are plenty of topics at AdSense/Google Ad support forums about this and Google does nothing, they are simply the worst advertiser, their automated violation reports are all done by bots and you can't contest anything, even when they are wrong and we as a site are not in violation, and yet they allow this crap to happen.

[Steven P. Administrators]

An update chaps.. after some back and forth with my primary advertiser they say that the problem stems from ads that have a very low bid on them, we raised our minimum that we accept (for fill quota) which should bypass a lot of the garbage ads that have redirects embedded in them.

 

So, the lowest paying ads redirect my users away. Where is the logic here? Google's process for identifying and blocking them is also like jumping through hoops, according to my advertiser and I believe them having dealt with Google for different services over the years.

 

Once again though the URL for this one was blocked at Neowin's adsense (now disabled, because we can't set a floor, or minimum there) and also blocked at the primary advertiser you will need to clear cache though if you are still getting the redirect.

[shockz]

It's amazing that such a "reputable" company like Google allows these types of redirects to even occur in their ad bank. 

[T3X4S]

FFS - every page ?

Cant click on items behind it ?

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

7 hours ago, T3X4S said:

FFS - every page ?

Cant click on items behind it ?

 

I have reported this to my advertiser!

[Steven P. Administrators]

I have already got a reply that they are looking into it

[Brandon H Supervisor]

and this is why I happily subscribe to Neowin

(though i will admit i use ad block everywhere else)

[Steven P. Administrators]

It is fixed, and thanks Brandon!

[LimeMaster]

1 hour ago, Brandon H said:

(though i will admit i use ad block everywhere else)

Tsk tsk!

 

In all seriousness, some sites are unbearable without it. Browse Imgur without it and you'll see what I mean.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

2 minutes ago, LimeMaster said:

Tsk tsk!

 

In all seriousness, some sites are unbearable without it. Browse Imgur without it and you'll see what I mean.

oh god yeah, i browse Imgur for 15 min and the uBlock Origin icon lists >1K ads blocked

[Steven P. Administrators]

Just now, Brandon H said:

oh god yeah, i browse Imgur for 30 min and the uBlock Origin icon lists >1K ads blocked

  

[LimeMaster]

Just now, Brandon H said:

oh god yeah, i browse Imgur for 30 min and the uBlock Origin icon lists >1K ads blocked

There even surprise audio ads in the mix. At least with Neowin, the ads seem to be controlled.

[T3X4S]

15 hours ago, Steven P. said:

I have already got a reply that they are looking into it

No !!!!!!!!!!

I want my employer on every page !  

I didnt want it removed !!

[Emn1ty]

Got redirected by an ad, didn't click anything.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Dear user "Generic Smartphone" lol

 

@Emn1ty I know you can't really bring up dev tools on mobile to grab anything but if it occurs again could you at least copy the address out of the top bar? that should help if they have trouble tracking it down by description  

[Emn1ty]

6 hours ago, Brandon H said:

Dear user "Generic Smartphone" lol

 

@Emn1ty I know you can't really bring up dev tools on mobile to grab anything but if it occurs again could you at least copy the address out of the top bar? that should help if they have trouble tracking it down by description  

I can, I figured the address was enough in the screenshot but if it does occur again I'll get the full one.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Yeah this is the second report of a redirected ad. Have reported both.

[+JR1966 Subscriber²]

1 hour ago, Steven P. said:

Yeah this is the second report of a redirected ad. Have reported both.

If only there was a way to stop the ads on Neowin with a clear conscience.  

[Steven P. Administrators]

Thought I would update this thread with an example that Neowin doesn't run everything that is requested of us.

 

[benten2000]

Unsure if a bad add or false positive but disabled Ublock Origin and the first time I visit the page my antivirus ESET Nod32 popped up with it blocking a part of the website [JS/Adware.AppNexus.A application], here is a copy of the log incase real or false.

 

https://pastebin.com/EfZCH5BM