What's up with these viglinks on my blog?

ettax · Member · May 13, 2011 at 8:22 pm
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About two weeks ago I noticed (in stats) that people were clicking on a link that I didn’t recognize.

Here is just the beginning of the link:
api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=cdee124b11d6baacda6c3e29b12e23dc….

It ultimately goes to the website where I sell my books, but I can’t find the link within my blog and I didn’t put it there.

I checked out viglink.com and realize someone is either capitalizing on my links or tracking my links.

At first I thought it was a pingback that seemed suspicious. Askimet held it for review and then approved it without asking me if I wanted to. I deleted the suspicious pingback and it seemed to dissapear for about a week but now it’s back, only this time there doesn’t seem to be any suspicious pingbacks.

I can’t believe someone could do this without hacking my blog.

Anyone know where this comes from and how to stop it?

The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
timethief · Member · May 13, 2011 at 8:55 pm
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As wordpress.com does run advertising on our blogs I think you should contact Staff about this. http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/
lp3000 · Member · May 25, 2011 at 9:01 pm
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I too am having this issue. I contacted Support but they didn’t seem to understand the problem. They thought the link were referrer spam. They are not. They are clicks from my blog that I did put in, but that I did put in using viglink. Someone else did. I emailed them back explaining this, but haven’t heard anything.

I will be contacting Viglink as well, I guess.
timethief · Member · May 25, 2011 at 9:07 pm
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Viglinks appear to be affiliate links. The only blogger initiated affiliate links allowed on free hosted wordpress.com blogs are found here.

Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs and get-rich-quick schemes (“Make six figures from home!!”, “20 easy steps to top profits!!”, etc). This includes multi-level marketing (MLM) blogs and pyramid schemes. To be clear, people writing their own original book, movie or game reviews and linking them to Amazon, or people linking to their own products on Etsy do NOT fall into this category. http://en.wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/

If you have any further questions about blogger initiated affiliate links on free hosted wordpress.com blogs please contact Staff directly by using this link. http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/
lp3000 · Member · May 25, 2011 at 9:57 pm
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Grr, my posting was atrocious and confusing. I’m sorry. I meant to say, I put the links in but I did not put them in through viglink, or any other affiliate site. They just started appearing that way a couple days ago and now they won’t stop.

But once again, I’ve already contacted support and am still awaiting an answer.
timethief · Member · May 25, 2011 at 10:58 pm
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Please be patient. They have an enormous workload.
wank · Member · May 27, 2011 at 1:21 am
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WordPress.com have introduced affiliate links via a few sites, including viglink, but are keeping it quiet for obvious reasons. When livejournal pulled a similar stunt there was an outcry from users, but then livejournal users are unusually prone to outcries.
lp3000 · Member · May 28, 2011 at 4:20 pm
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I’ll believe it when I hear it from WordPress, not Viglink. That is, if WP ever answers me.
timethief · Member · May 28, 2011 at 4:23 pm
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@lp3000
This thread dates back to May 13th, 2011 I have flagged this thread so it receives Staff attention and you get an answer in this thread that we can all benefit form reading. If Staff do answer you by email then please return to this thread and post what their answer was.
lp3000 · Member · May 28, 2011 at 4:29 pm
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Definitely will do.

Thanks Timethief. :)
timethief · Member · May 28, 2011 at 4:33 pm
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You’re welcome. Naturally, we all want to know what’s being displayed on our blogs to our visitors and receiving a definitive answer from Staff with regard to this issue is a reasonable expectation.
justjennifer · Member · May 28, 2011 at 7:50 pm
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I’d also like to point you to a previous forum discussion on something similar

https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/property-attribute-oncontextmenu-being-added-automatically-to-url?replies=14
lp3000 · Member · May 30, 2011 at 1:54 pm
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WP answered!

Here it is:

Hi,

Thanks for the note. The link shouldn’t be displayed like that in the stats. I’ll check in with our developers to see if we can update that.

I should also mention that to support the service (and keep free features free), we also sometimes run advertisements. We’ve tested a lot of different ad providers and currently use Google AdSense and Skimlinks as the main ones. The viglinks are a part of that. We try hard to make the ads discreet and effective and only run them in limited places. If you would like to completely eliminate ads from appearing on your blog, we offer the No-Ads Upgrade.

http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/

Ads on WordPress.com
timethief · Member · May 30, 2011 at 4:44 pm
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@lp3000
Thanks for posting the response from Staff. Now we know they are testing viglinks on our free hosted blogs and that “The link shouldn’t be displayed like that in the stats. ”

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