Unsolicited pop-ups on my blog

  • Unknown's avatar
    gingerwebster · Member ·

    Hello, I have recently been notified that my blog is distributing pop up adverts to people viewing through a mobile device. These pop ups have not been set up by me and I am concerned that they are putting my readers at risk of malware. How do I find the source of this issue and prevent it happening further?

    I am on a free plan and therefore unable to use plug-ins. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    I will type modlook into the sidebar tags on this thread for a Staff follow-up. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Also subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond and be patient while waiting. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi gingerwebster,

    I have recently been notified that my blog is distributing pop up adverts to people viewing through a mobile device.

    I’ve visited your site on my phone but I haven’t come across any popups. Can you confirm the URL of the site you are having problems with? Once I know more, I’ll look into it further for you.

    Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gingerwebster · Member ·

    Hello Gemma,

    Thanks for the reply and addressing my issue.

    This used to be an issue for both Android and iPhone devices. I began seeing the issue myself on my Android phone and set up this initial ticket, although in the last 2 days my phone hasn’t seen any of the pop-ups. However, I am still hearing reports, and seen first hand, that iPhone devices are still seeing pop-ups on a sporadic basis.

    The link to my overall blog is https://gingerwebster.wordpress.com and the link that prompted the pop up most recently, that I saw first hand, is https://gingerwebster.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/%E2%80%8Ba-world-with-wings/

    It seems to be random with the posts that initiate it and seems to just happen once per day, although I’m not 100% as I’m just working on the information I get through.

    The pop-ups that hit most recently are;

    http://sylvanwins.cricket
    http://best.android-sales.com

    Any solutions that you can arrange at your end would be amazingly appreciated.

    Thanks again,

    Paul

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi Paul,

    Thanks for the extra information. I’ll look into the popups and come back to you when I have some more information.

    Speak to you soon!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi Paul,

    I just wanted to let you know that we are still looking into this. It would useful to know which country you are browsing from — we can test from multiple location so this information would be really useful.

    Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gingerwebster · Member ·

    Hi Gemma,

    I am based in the UK. Fingers crossed you can solve the mystery and save my blog readers from these nasties!

    Much obliged for the update.

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Great, thank you! I’ll be in touch again when I have more information :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    blessingbox4u · Member ·

    I am also suffering from unwanted full page spam ads that you can not re- direct away from- on some mobile devices when searching Google and trying to click on the Google link-a persistent ad pops up, it seems to attached to one of my images, because the image is linked in the explanation in Google in bold. So. I am removing the image. I also received a weird unsolicited “verification” text message with a verification code from phone #415-390-2037.

  • Unknown's avatar
    blessingbox4u · Member ·

    I am also suffering from unwanted full page spam ads that you can not re- direct away from- on some mobile devices when searching Google and trying to click on the Google link-a persistent ad pops up, it seems to attached to one of my images, because the image is linked in the explanation in Google in bold. So. I am removing the image. I also received a weird unsolicited “verification” text message with a verification code from phone #415-390-2037.

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi blessingbox4u,

    Please start a new thread for your question and tag it with ‘modlook’. Once you’ve done so, we’ll look into it for you.

    Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    valbrooks71 · Member ·

    I’m also getting reports from friends that they are being redirected to http://sylvanwins.cricket when they access my blog. I’m at https://myquiltinglifesite.wordpress.com/

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi again,

    We’ve received reports in another thread of people seeing pop-up ads when clicking through from Facebook to WordPress.com. Does the same happen for you or do the pop-ups appear even if you visit the site directly?

    Thanks for your patience.

  • Unknown's avatar
    valbrooks71 · Member ·

    The instance I reported did not happen by clicking a link on Facebook, but it was a link I’d sent through had been accessed on an iphone. I’m also in the UK.

  • Unknown's avatar
    gingerwebster · Member ·

    Hi Gemma,

    Similar to valbrooks71, my issue seems to be with the blog itself. I have had reports from FB users and from people sent the link directly, so there doesn’t seem to be any direct correlation with a particular access point other than WP.

  • Unknown's avatar
    gingerwebster · Member ·

    Hi Gemma,

    I have just posted a new blog post this morning and gone to view it on my Android device and was met by a barrage of pop ups, therefore it seems not to be just iPhones that are singled out.

    The post link is;

    The Schwifty Sonnet

    The new offending pop ups originate from;

    Secure.kingmodonlex.info
    Obeyter.com
    Premium.android-sales.com
    Click.affiliaxe.com

    Has there been any developments at your end? This issue is severely restricting the posts I feel comfortable putting out, for fear of my readers getting bombarded.

    Thanks for all your attention on this,

    Paul

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi Paul,

    I’ll pass these links on aswell. I’m still waiting to hear the outcome of our testing — I appreciate you are waiting too and I’ll give you an update as soon as I know more.

  • Unknown's avatar
    markmcgillycuddy · Member ·

    Getting more and more visitors getting these spam pop ups taking over the blog page. It is definitely something to do with WordPress. The response time for something as serous as this seems very slow.

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    Hi folks – we are trying to get to the bottom of this. Can anyone confirm whether they’ve seen an ad like this on their site in the past few hours?

  • Unknown's avatar
    gemmacevans · Member ·

    Hi everyone,

    I have some more information for you! Our ads team have identified where the ads were coming from. A few advertisers submitted pop-up ads without our knowledge and they were disabled as soon as we identified where they were coming from — so you shouldn’t see any more of them now.

    Thanks for your patience while we got to the bottom of this.

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