Ads for subscribers now?

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Kyanar

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#128548 14-Aug-2013 14:42

I've noticed that even as a subscriber, some new thing called "Linksmart" is being included in pages, and results in keywords like iPhone, MacBook and so on being linked to GZ price searches, eBay listings, or other affiliate-y things. Is this intentional? I thought one of the benefits of subscribing is that we don't get any of the advertising code pushed down so we get faster browsing? This smells like ad code to me...

sittingduckz

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#878131 14-Aug-2013 14:46

What browser are you using? I think the new IE does something like this? I don't use ie but remember seeing it once

LinkSmart when typing in iPhone should send you to a Samsung page :)

Edit: Added smart a$$ comment :)

I'm not a complete idiot, I still have some parts missing.

Behodar

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#878133 14-Aug-2013 14:51

I'm seeing it in Firefox, so it's not IE doing it.

old3eyes

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#878138 14-Aug-2013 14:56

I don't see any in Opera 12.16

Regards,

Old3eyes

LennonNZ

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#878140 14-Aug-2013 14:57

I am pretty sure I've seen it before and its an extension / program which ads adverts to webpages on your local machine

Have you installed anything lately which could have included this?

Look in your add/remove programs and you might find it..

Behodar

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#878148 14-Aug-2013 15:05

The links go to price.geekzone.co.nz and Amazon with Geekzone's referral tag so it's unlikely to be something third-party (plus I only have a couple of extensions and neither of them are for ads).

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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#878154 14-Aug-2013 15:10

We use TWO linking technology providers:

- Viglink: automatically turns keywords into affiliate links. These are NEVER shown to logged in users, subscribers or not.

- LinkSmart: turns keywords *I* specify into links.

I am using LinkSmart to automatically link to make sure things like "telecom forum" link to our Telecom forum. Or "sbiddle" links to his blog and so on. I also made it link "Amazon Kindle" to our affiliate page or some keywords link to our Price Comparison site.

Kyanar

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#878155 14-Aug-2013 15:10

What Behodar said. If it is in fact an extension or some such, then GZ is advertising itself through some pretty sketchy ad networks! Definitely server side.

(And answered. Aha!)

Equinox IT

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freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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#878193 14-Aug-2013 16:15

Kyanar: If it is in fact an extension or some such, then GZ is advertising itself through some pretty sketchy ad networks!

Hmmm, no sketchy ad networks involved.

Kyanar

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#878488 15-Aug-2013 06:28

freitasm:
Kyanar: If it is in fact an extension or some such, then GZ is advertising itself through some pretty sketchy ad networks!

Hmmm, no sketchy ad networks involved.

No no, I was replying to the suggestion that it was an extension or plugin on my browser, in which case I would be surprised to see ads linking to GZ price search etc because that would be a little dodgy!

I saw one result point to eBay though - I can't imagine this was intentional, was it?

freitasm

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#878509 15-Aug-2013 07:54

There was one from LinkSmart going to eBay - probably I loaded a suggestion instead of entering a Geekzone page. This has been removed now.

LiveFierGamer

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#883793 24-Aug-2013 10:32

Hm....