Attack of Nasty Ads!
Folks,
As different adverts are shown on StatCounter in different parts of the world, here in StatCounter HQ, we don’t actually get to see every single advert shown to our members… and although we try hard to screen all ads BEFORE they are are shown on StatCounter, some nasty ads do slip through the net
In the last 24 hours we have heard reports that some nasty auto-expanding ads have been shown on StatCounter. We do apologise for this. We are investigating this with a view to removing all offending adverts ASAP and thanks are due to StatCounter members Gordon and Tony for their quick action in alerting us to this issue.
While we rely on our advertising revenue to fund our free service, we only want the nicest, best behaved ads on our site. Thanks for your patience as we work to fix this issue.
UPDATE:
We believe we have traced and removed the source of the offending ads. Please post here if you continue to see any nasty ads and give us the following information:
• Ad position – top or side
• url where ad is being seen
• screenshot of ad
• geo location where ad was seen
• Click url of ad
Please also take a screenshot of the ad and we will contact you directly to retrieve the image from you. Many thanks!
Thats what i like about the statcounter.
This is very thoughtful of Statcounter. Thanks for caring.
absolutely the best stat product around, and I’ve used a lot of them.
those ads are everywhere, so I personally don’t even notice them, but if they offend some people, you’re doing a great service by offering to attempt to intervene.
Everything is OK here in Greece…
Thanks for your work!!
Hi,
Thanks for your quick response. And that why i like your site.
Regards
Madhan.
Didn’t see any irritating adds or pop ups on this site yet. But admitting that you do have this unfortunately is a proof of excellent customer service that you are giving to thousands of people every day.
Anyway, i didn’t saw thenasty ads, but thanks for the imformation…
No problem – I’ve only ever noticed the Adsense ads from Google and nothing nasty!
Thanks,
Dave.
I have always seen Google ads running on Statcounter and have never experienced any issues whatsoever. It’s nice that you acted promptly and took care of the issue so soon. Great service. Great people. Always the best. Just use Statcounter, ignore the rest.
All ads are nasty!
Feature request: Live stats that update automatically.
StatCounter, keep up the good work and thanks for your concern.
OT – but I have been waiting patiently for EXIT LINKS to appear on my stat summary as i thought this was automatic with an upgrade that appears to have been and gone and they don’t show still… Does htis mean I have no way of finding this info for the past few months, only if I now add a new project?
No problems here in Beijing, China. Love your service
I believe everything is working fine
Just like to say that I had a few sites infected a few months back, blocked by Google and even worse a warning on the listings telling searches that my site(s) might infect them.
Changed sever passwords and removed google adds and within a week all was fine.
This site services is fantastic and has never ever given me cause for concern.
I don’t think I’ve heard of a site telling you, most would have just dealt with the problem and kept quiet – not these boy’s and that’s one of the reason I like and trust them so much.
Keep up the good work.
This is a problem we all face and Google Adsense has become a terrible culprit for unsuitable and inappropriate ads – we’ve seen “Get your African woman” [sic] and worse… it should be the DUTY of an Ad Agency to filter all ads PRIOR to approving them — Google cannot do that as it has a model that scales for maximum profit with minimum human intervention.
We are in the process of setting up or investing in an ad agency that serves ONLY QUALITY ads – we believe there is a market for this. If any publishers are interested (IDEALLY having at least 1 million page views per month) please do contact us to be included on launch list – it will also help investors and quality advertisers to know that we have more clients upcoming beyond beta testing.
You will be required to javascript or iframe code into your site which will not show any ads until the launch. Revenue sharing is on a 50% basis. Email mathaba@gmail.com if you are interested – thank you and once again hats off to StatCounter the most moral, ethical and principled e-business of huge customer base that we know of. RESPECT!
Thanks as ever for your dilligence, mostly I see relevant web design related ads, often quite useful!
i saw those ’suddenly enlarging’ ads a few days back but things seem to be as usual today!
statcounter is the best counter ever. many paid counters do not provide as good service as your good counter provides. I highly recommend statcounter to all my friends.
Never had a problem yet – but thanks for the heads up.
Keep up your excellent service.
It’s great to see your efforts to keep the website clean. That make a difference.
Statcounter outperforms its competitor
Anyway, I didn’t see any dirty ads.
no problemo thanks for all your efforts
sounds good… I’m loving statcounter
you guys are doing a great job!
No problems here..
I love your service.
it’s okay, StatCounter service is wonderful !
Since the ads are in an iframe, they have limited access. It is not this website, as the website that is inside the iframe is not hosted here. (An iframe is a browser window built-into a webpage. It has a separate URL and permissions, and has a separate history and refresh.)
If you, the developers of stat-counter, add a button next to the advertisement, for reporting violations… That would simplify things a little more.
Perhaps you should create a new website. One that demands all ads confirm to a standard set of rules.
1. Must be served from an approved and valid SSL HTTPS connection.
2. Must have a unique ID for reporting.
3. Must have a “CLOSE” button, which instantly terminates the ad.
- Located in the top-right, minimum of 20px x 20px.
4. Must be silent, with a “PLAY” or “VOLUME”, on/off button.
- Located in the bottom-right, minimum of 20px x 20px.
5. Must have a “REPORT” button, which is links the ID to our reporting-agent URL.
6. Must not contain an internal IFRAME, or load content from another URL or IP that does not match the delivering URL or IP.
7. Must not attempt to install or activate non-browser related programs.
8. Must be non-persistent and self-terminate after 20 seconds of stalled loading. (One dead ad will stop the rest of a page from loading.)
9. Must only have one exit-point link, with the exception of the “REPORT” link.
10. Must not feature content that is unacceptable for public display.
Ok, get to work, I laid-down the foundation… well, I did spread the lime-powder… just add water, mix, surface, let it set, and harden… Um, then build walls, plumbing, electrical, AC, roof, paint, shingles, inspected, and move-in!
LOL.
I am sure that you are big enough, to be selective with the ads you allow. Advertise your stats, and sell your own space.
Thanks for letting us know, keep up the good work, you guys are fan fricken tastic
Thanks for frankly let us know. I have not experienced any such bad ads. Thanks for your nice service. I should say that I can’t live a day with out seeing statcounter results. This service is unexceptionally great.
StatCounter Stills rocks
I’m still seeing some of those annoying big ads that take up half the screen and won’t go away, but I appreciate the work you are doing to control the nasty ads.
I have not seen any nasty ads. I am located in Texas.
Hope this helps.
Jorge
Stat Counter is a beacon in a world of corporate poop .. I can speak from personal experience of the ethical treatment of their clients .. keep dealing Team Stats.
Ireland rides high.
Ivor
I love Statcounter. It’s a great way to see what people are googleing and how they made it to your site. I have it open all day and I keep an eye closely to responses from mailshots and advertising
And your Irish!!
Thanks for frankly let us know. I have not experienced any such bad ads.
Thank you for informing us.
Thanks you guys, you are one of the best in industry.
We love you guys thanks for an awesome service
Thanks for bring us up to speed and forthcoming
Just a little slow on the pages loading … But other than that everything is cool!
Keep up the great work StatCounter!
Thanks for fixing, love the advert graphic!
I’ve read a few references to Google Adsense here. I just wanted to let everyone know, though google may not be evil, Adsense kind of is. They don’t care very much wether they show adds on your site that you disapprove of.
Trying to ban such adds yourself is almost impossible without clicking them many times to track them through multiple redirects. But beware, this action WILL get you banned. (like it did to me)
So what I am trying to say here is that if you find an Adsense ad that you would like StatCounter to get rid of, keep in mind that the StatCounter staff cannot click the ad to get it’s many redirect links. If you are able to provide these links to StatCounter, it will make it much easier for the StatCounter staff to get these ads removed.
Thanks to all of you at StatCounter for such a great way to track my websites usage. I’ve tried other services, in two words, “they suck” compared to StatCounter.
Thanks!
Can this tracker track the time that a user is on the site? Thanks
everything is cool!
Keep up the great work StatCounter!
thanks
I’ve noticed that stuff I’ve been searching on in Google, car parts stuff, appears as ads on SC. I’m going to run adaware see if that clears it.
What about increasing the size of logs? it’s the next step to increase the quality of the Statscounter Services…
I check my account everyday and don’t see any nasty ads anymore
I think that this issue is fixed now.
Keep up the good work
Keep up the good work guys…no complaints here…thumbs-up
I didn’t see any nasty ads, so it seems that everything is working fine
All the best,
It all seems good to me as well !
This is not a nasty ad, but it seems to be completely fraudulent.
http ://www.smallbizcenter.info/magniwork.php?apid=A3M&apflag=1&v=1
The ad appeared as the top banner on the StatCounter page. The advertiser sells plans for a perpetual motion machine, even using the phrase “perpetual Motion” in their ad. For $197 they will sell you the plans to build your own perpetual motion machine, running on magnets.
I’m an electronics professional and a physics buff and I know that’s impossible, but there are an awful lot of people who don’t know, and can be suckered into contributing to this scheme. For $197 they’re selling the proverbial free lunch.
I’ve taken screen shots and can post them to you if you like. And I do want to thank you for your very fine service. I’ve been using StatCounter since 2004, and I keep recommending you to all my friends who run websites and blogs. Thank you!
StatCounter Team Response:
Thanks Daniel – these ads should be gone now!
u guys r so cool !