A new method of hijacking?

using flash banners

[Lorel]

I was checking Google's cache looking for a hijacker of one of my client's sites and ran across a "press release" supposedly submitted by my client (it may have been) however there is no link to the site. Instead there is a link to another page on the site, their "directory", where they have a flash banner, which if you click on it, goes to my client's site. However this click doesn't show up in the counter for the site and I waited several minutes. Also the code for that banner does not show any link to the site.

So how they are getting to the site?

When I click on the banner and hold down the control button it does not bring up the "copy this link" option--because there is no link associated with the code. It's coming from somewhere else.

Here is the code (I removed identifying domains):

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000" id="obj1" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" border="0" width="468" height="60">
<param name="movie" value="../ad_banners/client_ad_banners/CLIENTS-DOMAIN.swf">
<param name="quality" value="High">
<embed src="../ad_banners/client_ad_banners/CLIENTS-DOMAIN.swf" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" name="obj1" width="468" height="60" quality="High"></object>

Can someone tell me how to determine if this is a 302 redirrect?

I find it suspicious because they hid the link.

[CainIV]

There is no link associated because Flash uses its own method to call a url. As far as I know there isn't a 302 redirect available by flash links, but thats worth looking into.

Flash links are not indexed so it is doubtful the banner is causing any threat to you in that regard.

[followgreg]

Should not worry as said above, flash can't be understood be googlebot, so you should be able to get any 302 you want from those without any problem.

[tantalus]

"Should not worry as said above, flash can't be understood be googlebot"

You might want to view these posts [google.com].

[jomaxx]

If the site was already in the browser cache, that's probably why the counter did not record your visit.