People unable to reach my site
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I did. Just messaged her. Will get back to you if I get anything. Is this something that will keep happening on my site or it just a fluke that happens on occasion? Thanks for your help!
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It shouldn’t be happening on any sites. We’ll get rid of it if we can track it down.
I’ll be stepping away for a bit, but we’ll follow up with you… just let us know as soon as you’ve posted that screenshot to the media library. Thank you!
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I haven’t heard from the person who sent the screenshot so probably won’t. I hope you can track down the perp anyway. The initial hack is in my media library now. Thank you @supernovia and @bookstooge. Appreciate your support!
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Just noting this is not a hack. This is advertisers that include code in their ads that redirect visitors once the ad loads in their browser. But neither your site, nor that visitor’s device or browser is compromised in any way.
This is unfortunately a problem across the ad industry, and while we ban these advertisers as soon as we find them, we do need the information we asked for above in order to find them as we serve millions of ads a day across WordPress.com, and no two people visiting your site see exactly the same ads.
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@kokkieh @supernovia I just got some more information from one of the people who received the odd ads. She said this: “I was able to recreate the popups I was experiencing yesterday. These are just a few. Once they begin, no amount of refreshing or using the back arrow would get me out of it! I don’t look at contest or dating websites that might link to this kind of content, so it’s a mystery to me. I hope you’re able to figure it out!”
Looks like she was on a Sprint phone and 12:54 pm yesterday. I’m uploading the screenshots to my media library now. Thank you.
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The screenshots are up. The last 4 posted in my media library. Let me know if you get access to them and if it helps you solve the mystery.
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Thank you for the screen shots. However, just a picture of the ad does not help us track them down – we serve millions of ads a day and cannot manually go through all of them to try and match them to the pictures you posted in your media library.
We also need information on the device and browser where the ads appeared, the person’s IP address, the exact post on which the ad appeared, etc.
Please ask the visitor who is seeing the ads to send us all of the following:
- Their device, browser and operating system.
- Their IP address (they can find this by visiting whatismyip.com from the device where they’re seeing the ads)
- The exact URL of the page/post that showed the ad.
- What was being advertised.
- The URL that the ad takes them to.
- A screenshot of the ad that hijacked the browser.
They can send these to us privately via the form at https://en.support.wordpress.com/about-these-ads/
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Thanks @kokkieh. Since I don’t know the person who experienced this, I don’t feel like I can ask her for all of that information. I’ll keep this all in mind if it happens again so I know what to do and can respond right away. I also know now how to access admin help.
I hope it won’t happen to anyone else when I share my posts. If I were to make my blog ad free, would this never happen? Is it happening because there are ads on my blog?
I appreciate your help.
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I don’t feel like I can ask her for all of that information
That is why I provided the link above that will allow that person to send the info to us directly. They’re most likely seeing this on other WordPress.com sites as well – this is a problem across the entire online ad industry at the moment, and is not restricted to only your site or even only to WordPress.com.
I hope it won’t happen to anyone else when I share my posts.
Unfortunately I can’t promise that. We have no direct control over which ads show to which visitors – that controlled by factors like their device, location, browser history, etc, so it’s very possible others might see it. That’s why we need the information that can help us track down the specific advertiser and block them from our ad network.
If I were to make my blog ad free, would this never happen? Is it happening because there are ads on my blog?
If you were to upgrade to one of our paid plans that will remove all advertising from your site, so these redirecting ads won’t appear any more either.
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Thanks for all of your help. I upgraded to a paid plan. So now I don’t have to worry about it!
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