Unwanted advertising links...

[dms]

Is this tag needed... [] in the header to prevent advertising links from appearing on the site? I noticed several link on one of my sites while viewing using IE and I did not code them in. I'm not quite sure how to prevent this from happening, but was hoping this is an easy fix.

[Andrea]

Do you have a free hosting account? Ohter than your host, nobody can put anything on your site, unless they hack into it.

[dms]

No it is not a free hosting account. The links seem to be random.

 

I'm new to web design and use a mac (no IE), so I never noticed until I used my sons laptop (a two year old TOSHIBA) He told me that this was not visible on any other site besides mine. The links are not there using any other browser, so I would think it has to be an IE issue. My son has just switched to UBUNTU as his OS, so I'm not sure if I can duplicate the problem. I hope he can still boot using vista and IE. I'll check with him asap.

 

One thing I did notice was that after refreshing the page the links disappeared? I don't know where the links came from, but I sure don't like em!

[falkencreative]

I used to have a good link about this, but unfortunately I seem to have misplaced it...

 

Here is some more information about the MSSmartTags:

 

http://www.unwantedlinks.com/SmartTagsArticle.htm

http://www.addme.com/newsletters/issue216.htm

 

Basically, it is a way that allows Microsoft to insert links into your content. The prevents that. I was under the impression that this wasn't really an issue any more... but in your case, it looks like it is. Adding "" inside the

tags of your website should fix the unwanted ads.

 

I don't know a huge amount about it, so if someone else knows more than I, please comment!

[LSW]

That is old code. Back in the days of IE7 Beta, M$ created a new thing called "smart links." These inserted a link into your web site through the browser to their paying advertisers. You had no control and received no money for it. Just ugly squiggley purple underlines. Imagine you support PETA with your Blog and IE Inserts a link to a Furrier?

 

So major protests followed and this meta tag appeared to fight it... and by IE7 Final M$ had removed it, but swore they were dedicated to the technology and it would return. It did, in IE8. The details escape me, but IE8 has a direct relative to the original built in.

 

My Guess is that it only happens in IE? IE8? If it happens anywhere else you have an issue, maybe a spyware or a tool bar that is doing it.

[dms]

I've added the PreventParsing tag to my site, so if it happens again, maybe it's something else. I'll post again if it re-appears. I'm pretty sure he has IE8, but I'll check. Thanks Mark

Edited May 16, 2009 by dms