"Congratulations" Mobile Redirect Popup ad on iPhones

[1164mgc]

A few of my readers are reporting there is been an ad popping up on their iPhones recently that blocks them from reading the site further and forwards them away from my site when they try to click out of it. I recently enabled Adsense auto ads, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with this. I myself have seen this same annoying ad pop up on my iPhone, however it wasn't on my site, it was a major US city newspaper site as well as the weatherunderground. If you click anywhere it redirects you and the only way to get back to the site you were originally reading is to close the tab, open a new one and try again. Has anyone had complaints from their readers about these ads and were you able to do anything about it?

The ad usually says something along the lines of...

Congratulations!

Amazon.com User!

You've been selected for a chance to get the $1000 Amazon Gift Card, Apple iPhone X256G or Samsung Galaxy S8!

Please click OK to claim your reward before it expires.

Thanks everyone for your assistance.

[NickMNS]

Have you enabled vignette ads with auto?

You can go to AdSense Ad-Review center to try and find the offending ad. But I would guess, given its spammy nature, that it will not display as a pop in the ad-review. Look out for ads that have similar creatives to what was described and lead to similarly spammy websites. Good luck it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I have not seen it, or received any complaints from my users.

[1164mgc]

Yes I sure did enable vignette ads with auto and I do suspect that this might be a vignette ad, because I never had that turned on before on my mobile site. Is there a way to only see vignette ads in the Ad Review Center? I don't see anyway of doing that in the review center.

[NickMNS]

Is there a way to only see vignette ads in the Ad Review Center?

Not that I know of, but you can filter based on other criteria that might narrow down the ads to review.

[not2easy]

I've noticed in my account that they are pushing/recommending AutoAds and Expanding Ads, neither of which I would want to inflict on visitors.

Can't you just disable the vignette ads? If they are accepting such poor ads, I would not bother with reviewing them - you won't be able to see what it does when active.

[ember]

I've seen that on other sites. It pops up, covers the page and you can't get rid of it, although I've never tried clicking on it.

[Home_Alone]

I've had complaints from visitors to my site about these ads but I don't have Auto Ads enabled.

This URL in Google's Adsense forum gives more information: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/EPo3iUO54HM



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[edited by: not2easy at 8:40 pm (utc) on Mar 30, 2018]
[edit reason] Please copy the URL to visit - the '#' character breaks our links [/edit]

[janvitos]

Hi,

I've had these frustrating auto redirecting spam ads for a while on my site back in February. I was able to trace the problem to ads shown from the URL creditcards.com and Ad Network RTBCat #3. I noticed the ads because people were starting to complain in the comments of social media pages associated to my site.

It was a tedious process to trace the problem back to that URL, but around 30 minutes after I blocked it in the Ad review centre (old version), the ads were gone and never came back. I was able to trace the problem to that URL by refreshing the page on a mobile device, scrolling quickly and taking notes of the ads shown until the browser got redirected automatically. After doing this for a while, I did an elimination process and noticed it was only redirecting when ads from creditcards.com were showing. By looking at the "HIGH" impression rate coming from that URL, it was pretty clear that it was the culprit.

After looking at the stats for the Ad Network RTBCat #3 associated with that URL, I found out around 5% of my traffic was affected. I also noticed a huge dip in social refferal during that time, probably because sites like Facebook and Twitter put my site and/or page in a sort of temporary black list (they apparently do this for sites with viruses, spam, low quality content, etc.)

As soon as I blocked the URL & Ad Network, the RPM started rising and bad comments from visitors stopped. Around a month later, refferal trafic started picking up and things seem to be back to normal for now, but I'm closely watching the Ad review centre ever since.

I also emailed Google about the issue but they said they needed debug info to investigate. I could not obtain such info because the issue was happening on my visitor's computers and I had no way to debug on their machines (I had a nice visitor help me out for the initial tests when I finally found the issue, but that's all the troubleshooting I could do because the problem wasn't happening on any of my devices). They replied they needed the debug info and that if I was ever able to obtain it I should open a complaint.

[1164mgc]

Thank you guys for the information. I know that this has happened not only on my site but also on major websites on my iphone such at the weatherunderground and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper. I've seen this happen for at least six if not more months on these sites and it does seem to be an Apple iPhone IOS issue only. What I don't understand if this is a security hole in IOS software and it's been going on for months, why hasn't Apple addressed this and push a software update out? My iPhone isn't that old, but it is a few years old being a 6 plus and it makes me wonder if this is just happening on older phones and Apple is dragging their feet on fixing this since they got caught slowing down older phones.

I just blocked the RTBCat #3 network and creditcards.com, I sure hope this helps. It's also frusterating that you need to submit debug information to Adsense, how does one get that debug information on an iPhone?

[Sal Collaziano]

Just adding that I'm also having this problem. I started a new thread before I found this one. I've asked for it to be deleted. In any event, here's what I posted...

I run Adsense on a few sites and my visitors are complaining about "Amazon popups" via mobile device. I took a look and I'm also getting a lot of these ads - which are called forced redirects. This really hasn't been an issue for me or my viewers until recently. A few of the URLs users are being redirected to are:

samsung-2018-win.club
samsung-prize-giveaway.today
samsung-win-2018.club
walmartwin2018.club

They always bring you to a new page, in the same tab/window - and you can't use the browser back button to go back.

And they always start off with a loud "Congratulations"... Does anyone have any input on how to defeat this?

edit: I just blocked Ad Network RTBCat #3 and creditcards.com - let's see what happens.

By the way, I'm using a Google Pixel 2 device with the Chrome browser...

[Sal Collaziano]

I solved my problem by blocking ads from:

christopherandbanks.com
sunasya.com

Once those ads no longer displayed, my problems went away...

[CommandDork]

Just started getting these on my network too so thanks for the info.

[Travis]

I find it worrisome to see how a third part ad can interact / alter the aspect of a web page. One day there will be a big-big problem with this.

[CommandDork]

Just wanted to add that I was on an Android OS phone when the browser take-over occurred.

[Sal Collaziano]

Just noting that I've been blocking more of these ads. They're affecting my Adsense earnings by causing viewers to stop viewing my sites. This means these ads are affecting our revenue. Browse your sites with a mobile device. If you own a forum, browse individual threads

To note, even when I go through the BLOCK ADS area in Google Adsense, my browser is hijacked when these ads are displayed. I'm not quite sure why Google isn't paying attention...

[CommandDork]

Just got another one of these terrible pop-ups today on my site running only Adsense (the phone is Android OS, Samsung S6). Blocked the following URL...

amazon-giftcard-giveaway.today

[Travis]

Thank you CommandDork

[Sal Collaziano]

@commanddork I don't think blocking the URL works. Let me know if it worked for you. I've been having to go into Adsense and block the ads themselves.

[keyplyr]

They just keep coming back with new domains.

[Sal Collaziano]

Just keep going to Google and block the culprit ads. Don't block the domains - block the ads themselves...

[keyplyr]

@Sal Collaziano - If you're speaking to me, I'm not blocking any of them. I don't have those ads.

[Travis]

Ads shouldn't include tons of javascript code, which are not controlled by Adsense itself. Advertisers should be allowed to provide an image/animation, a link, eventually a static HTML, like a form, and that's all. All the remain should be handled by Adsense itself, and no one else. By letting advertisers inject any code they want, this is highly insecure.

[keyplyr]

letting advertisers inject any code they want, this is highly insecure.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities can be controlled by using a Content Security Policy [infosec.mozilla.org] header field.

Content-Security-Policy: script-src 'self' https://apis.google.com

source: [developers.google.com...]

[CommandDork]

Just got a direct complaint via email from a user on one of my sites for BOTH the Amazon and the Walmart "congratulations" ad popups (they sent screenshots to prove it, again it looks like Android OS and Samsung phone being targeted). They said they would not revisit the site until they believe the problem had been fixed : /

Frustrating.

[edited by: CommandDork at 5:31 pm (utc) on Apr 24, 2018]

[Sal Collaziano]

It's EXTREMELY frustrating...

[MayankParmar]

And imagine the amount of readers already stopped reading the site without informing. This sucks :(

[Sal Collaziano]

Exactly. And nobody knows to hit the browser's back button four times to get back to the site - AND, if they do, to quickly switch to another page before you're brought back to the bad ad again. It's crazy. I really don't understand how these ads are allowed through. As I'm blocking/reporting the ads on the Adsense site - I'm also being taken to the "Congratulations" ads... It's crazy...

[MayankParmar]

Maybe you can try Ad Balancer? Switch it to 60% and see the impact.

[Travis]

I really don't understand how these ads are allowed through

Nothing says they are allowed. There will always be bad advertisers (or abusers). I am sure that Adsense is banning plenty, but there are so many appearing, or coming back.

Also, may be these ads are served by third parties. You can try to disable third parties networks, if this is not yet the case, and see what happens.

A couple of times, I had problems with visitors complaining about sexually oriented ads on my site, which is for all public. And this in spite of the fact I blocked the category. But somehow the advertisers were able to list their ads under other categories, and so on .

[Sal Collaziano]

Good point, there are probably so many being setup... As for whether or not it's in Adsense or a third party - it's definitely in Adsense as I'm blocking them in the Adsense control panel/area...