Sneaky redirect happening on my wordpress site.

[EdKim]

On my site, gosandiego.com I have a couple links at the top which directly link to another site. However, I noticed that when I click on the link, it seems to go to another site for a few milliseconds before being redirected to the correct destination.

It took a little while but I was able to take a screenshot of the sneaky redirect. It starts awin1.com/awclick.php...

I am fairly sure that awin1.com belongs to Affiliate Window, an affiliate marketing company much like Commission Junction but smaller.

I just had someone email about my site and said the link redirected on him too but his browser got sent to viglink.com

I was wondering, Has someone hijacked my site or has someone hijacked my browser or is it something else?

Thanks

0LBwUoc

[Todd_McDonald]

Hey Edkim,

Can you let me know the anchor text of the link you're clicking that is causing this? I'd like to check it out myself and then I might be able to help you out some more.

[EdKim]

This is the link text:

Save $20 on orders over $300: Use Code FALLFUN15

The coupon has expired but I'll leave it up for a couple days to make sure you can look at it. Thanks!

[EdKim]

Sorry. I forgot to mention. Both links at the top do this while I am using safari.

If you go down the page, there is a subhead "Save more with coupon codes". Both links also exhibit this behavior. I am considering a redirect plugin but not sure if that would solve the problem.

I have also tried this in other browsers but they react too quickly for me to see if anything is happening.

[Todd_McDonald]

I took a look and I'm not seeing anything that says "hacked" to me. I'm assuming this is only happening for you when click specific links? If so it seems unlikely it would be an issue with your browser either (something you need to clean off).

I'm afraid I'm not an expert here but it seems clean to me. I did a little digging on awclick.php and it appears that some people have noticed odd behavior similar to what you are describing when clicking links to different sites if they have:

• Certain ad blockers installed
• Certain types of internet/computer security software installed

I'm not seeing what your seeing when I move through the links. Again, it doesn't seem malicious or like an issue from what I'm seeing.

Sorry I can't be more conclusive!

[EdKim]

Thanks for the info Todd. I've seen the comments from Kaspersky but that is in the case where the site links to awin1.com. Kaspersky does not like the 1 by 1 tracking pixel or something like that.

The weird thing is that the link goes directly to smartdestinations.com. Why is the click being rerouted through awin1.com?

Googling the "awclick.php" has led me to some further research. I'll report back if I see anything

I think my solution is to cloak the link but I don't know if it will work.

[Todd_McDonald]

Yeah that is strange. I'm stumped on that one myself. The info I'm finding on awin1, awclick.php, etc. is all kind of loose and not very helpful anyway. Very odd. I'll be curious to hear if you figure out why that seems to be inserted in between destinations for you.

Good luck, and if I come across anything else I'll post here as well.