Preview Tool and The Filter

Some sites seem to bypass the filter...

[zett]

I know that the Preview Tool is not the most reliable tool on Earth, but it is the only tool available to us to see what ads might show up on our sites.

Now, my experience so far has been that typically changes to the filter will be reflected in the Preview Tool, i.e. if the Preview Tool shows widgets.com and I add that site to the filter, then I usually see the site gone in the filter list the next day or so.

However, I came across two sites that seem to just bypass this rule. One belongs to an individual in London (let's call it widgets.net - not the real name), the other one is org.uk - both use non-www subdomains, e.g. in2.widgets.net or somestuff.org.uk

Now, as I trust the Preview Tool to be fairly correct, I would assume that these sites still show up on my sites, despite being filtered.

What is your experience? Have you noticed a similar behaviour? How do you see the reliability of the Preview Tool? How do you act upon the results you see in the Preview Tool?

[Genuine1]

I have had a full filter for three years and never has a correctly filtered ad shown back up. I check often.

[Scurramunga]

my experience so far has been that typically changes to the filter will be reflected in the Preview Tool

I thought the two were independent of each other.

[Genuine1]

No stuff you block disapears from the filter (6 to 24 hours) as well as from your pages.

[zett]

Genuine1:

I have had a full filter for three years and never has a correctly filtered ad shown back up. I check often.

Me too, and I think I know what I am doing.

In fact, I only stumbled upon this problem when I checked the sites with the Preview Tool, and copied unwanted domains to the clipboard. Then, later, I wanted to populate the filter with all the found domains (my standard procedure). Then the filter list complained that widgets.net was a duplicate line, i.e. the domain was already in the filter. I checked and indeed, there it was, and from my records it has been sitting in the filter for a long time. But yet I saw the ad in the Preview Tool.

This has happened only with this domain (and org.uk) - what's going on?

[eljefe3]

I've seen some sneaky redirects that even though I had them in the filter, they redirected to another site and survived. Only way I found to track down these types of sites was to actually click the site and see where the click actually ended up.