Attack of Nasty Ads!

Folks,

As different adverts are shown on StatCounter in different parts of the world, here in StatCounter HQ, we don’t actually get to see every single advert shown to our members… and although we try hard to screen all ads BEFORE they are are shown on StatCounter, some nasty ads do slip through the net

nasty-ad-small1In the last 24 hours we have heard reports that some nasty auto-expanding ads have been shown on StatCounter. We do apologise for this. We are investigating this with a view to removing all offending adverts ASAP and thanks are due to StatCounter members Gordon and Tony for their quick action in alerting us to this issue.

While we rely on our advertising revenue to fund our free service, we only want the nicest, best behaved ads on our site. Thanks for your patience as we work to fix this issue.

UPDATE:
We believe we have traced and removed the source of the offending ads. Please post here if you continue to see any nasty ads and give us the following information:

• Ad position – top or side
• url where ad is being seen
• screenshot of ad
• geo location where ad was seen
• Click url of ad

Please also take a screenshot of the ad and we will contact you directly to retrieve the image from you. Many thanks!

123 Comments

  1. Unfortunatly ads on the web are becoming increasing common, simply as they are the easiest way to make money. As with spam i think there if definately a market to create filters.

    Anyway, good work you guys!

  2. I’ve seen those ads and they pale in comparison to others even on family oriented websites. There has got to be a way to filter out those ads. I too had the same issue awhile back and sent a complaint to those responsible. Never got a reply. I now only have text adverts on my site.

    Paul

  3. You guys are doing a very good job. Ads are OK. I have not seen any nasty ones. I do not understand. you have adsense ads displayed. And in my understanding google does not allow adult advertising.
    All in all thank you for your service and I do not have any problems with your ads.
    Just keep it up
    Matt

    StatCounter Team Response:
    Hi Matt,

    We have actually had trouble with unsavoury ads from Google from time to time… plus we do run other ad networks also.

    Thanks for your comment!

  4. I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you guys how much I appreciate your site! Even the FREE version overdelivers! I haven’t seen any nasty ads in my neck of the woods, and I must admit to being somewhat of a stat junkie. I love your site, and now that I think about it I think I need to do a post on your site and send some traffic your way!!
    Thanks again,
    Jerry

  5. Your site has allowed me to know which of my niche marketing efforts are working without $1000 worth of worthless advice.

  6. Good day,

    Statcounter is my favorite website analytics and stats service. You guys are doing a wonderful job to ensure quality service.

    Although I haven’t seen any issues with the ads displayed at Statcounter, however, as far as I understand, it is Google Adsense ads that show up on top and sidebar of Statcounter website. It is strange that Google didn’t filter bad adverts? May be some may have slipped through.

    If anyone is complaining about any issues with advertisements, it is unfair. Statcounter delivers Google Adsense ads. It is Google’s duty to filter nasty ads and deliver only quality advertisements.

    The bottom line, I love statcounter because it is the best website analytics service. I have been using Statcounter since years. I wrote a review of best web analytics services at my website and Statcounter is included in the list.

    Rock on guys!

    Regards,
    Andy.

    StatCounter Team Response:
    Andy – thanks!

    Appreciate your kind comments and understanding.

    All the best!

  7. I must be extremley lucky as up to now (fingers crossed) I have not encountered a Trojan. I run Vista Ultimate with Avant Browser and Avast anti-virus. Those with Windows Defender seem to protect me well. I have never had any problem with Statcounter other than sometimes it is a bit slow loading. Thank you for this brilliant free Service.

    Jim

  8. Couple of my websites was blocked by google search a week ago because of a trojan on the index and I remove all the advertising but the trojan pop ups continue, so once I remove the counter everything stop, counters with pop ups is a big NO NO, I understand that you guys need a revenue to continue the free service but the nasty pop ups with virus wont work. I add the counters again and it seems to be allright so far.

    Greetings from Kansas!

    StatCounter Team Reponse:
    Hi Steve,

    Sorry to hear about your troubles, but your Trojan problem had nothing to do with StatCounter.

    We don’t serve ads on our members sites period. The only advertising we use is on StatCounter itself. In fact, we even allow you to choose an invisible counter option with no need to credit StatCounter at all – even for free accounts. We certainly don’t allow any pop ads on StatCounter and we DEFINITELY don’t serve ads with viruses!

  9. WOW, I have never seen *any* ads on StatCounter.com, never mind nasty ones! Thanks for letting us know however, and sorry you had to deal with this. You guys provide an excellent service!

  10. Service is much faster today. Thanks for the quick response. Thanks for your website, too.

    StatCounter Team Response:

    Good to hear that June. Thanks!

  11. As always, this is a nice point from you. You don’t put ads in our websites, like other “free” counters do (pop ups, pop unders…), and still you really even care for ads that you rule just in your own site. It was not so long when some kind of “nasty” (e. g. not-so-safe-for-work aka porn or adult-oriented) ads appeared in Adsense and you asked for community for tracking those adverts and help you identify and “ban” them from your site.

    Thank you very much, statcounter guys. You have a bussiness, but you rule it so clean and so friendly that I just can hope some “others” would learn from you.

    Cheers!

    StatCounter Team Response:

    Thanks Persefone!

    We do try to provide the best service we can… great to know you’re pleased with how we’re doing!

  12. Pages load slowly with long waits for “optimized-by.rubiconproject.com”. Each page load has up to a 45 second wait. Navigating around the site takes forever.

    StatCounter Team Response:
    Hi June,

    Please report any site performance issues to our Support Desk immediately as they happen using this form.

    This will allow us to investigate and resolve any issues asap.

    Thanks!

  13. This is a little off topic but related to the interactions between web programs.

    I wanted to alert WordPress/Statcounter users the Amazon Showcase widget has crashed and it can take down your Statcounter functions.

    Deactivate the Amazon widget and everything returns to normal. Amazon changed their interface and the widget won’t be updated.

    I lost two days of stats before isolating the problem.

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