Are Made For Adsense Sites Ruining Search Results?

With its increasing prevalence, ad-spam has gradually become a major problem on the web. As search engine users, we are already well aware of the annoyance this can pose to us with regards to our query results. However, what you may not know is that these advertisements can actually be exploiting your PC and secretly downloading potentially malware onto it.

In this post, I'll discuss how and why visitors are being directed to these sites in the first place as well as how they could affect you when visiting other pages on the web. I'll also show a few ways to avoid them and reclaim your browsing experience from those pesky ads!

So without further ado...

The Answer To The Question:

There is a lot of confusion on how ad-spam is affecting search results today, so I'll start with an explanation. There are two types of ad-spam that harm you, and they both have a very common cause. These are referred to as web-spam and JavaScript (JS) spammers. Essentially, web-spam refers to spam that appears on websites which you have visited in the past. Since you've previously been there, the website can then redirect you to their own domain or some other page they had control over. At this point, the content of this "subdomain" page will be loaded into your browser by way of JS code embedded within it.

The JS spammers usually have the ability to change the content of their pages while you're still viewing it, and often times of their own volition. They target popular sites such as social media, news portals, forums, video sharing sites and even blogs...etc. There are a lot of them out there and they are known to be pseudo-intelligent by design. That is to say that they seem to be doing things on their own accord when in reality they are not taking any action at all. For example, one notorious JS spambot was found to be able to identify keywords within blog posts and modify them enough so that the post would return high search engine rankings...on the basis of a single keyword, no less.

When these JS spammers are targeting a website that you have visited and been redirected to in the past, they can often get you to run malicious code on your computer. This can include keyloggers, trojans and even malware. This is known as flash-virus or clickfraud, which redirects your browsing actions from legitimate sites in an attempt to try and trick online advertisers into running ads on those pages. Note: if the page has been visited before and therefore hasn't loaded its own content into your browser yet, it won't be able to use JavaScript code to do anything with your browser if it tries to run this sort of malware on your computer.

The Difference Between Ad-Spam And Adware:

When you're browsing sites that contain advertisements, usually they are not made to harm your computer. That is, they're there to sell a product or promote a service. However, with ad-spam on the rise, it is slowly being replaced by adware and malicious software which are more maliciously designed...to infect you. This is why you always hear of the need for ad-blockers and anti-virus...etc today.

Conclusion:

So there you have it. Ad-spam and JS spammers are becoming more prevalent now than ever before. The only way to protect yourself from them and prevent them from infecting your computer is with an ad-blocker and an anti-virus utility of choice...such as AVG AntiVirus Free Edition or AVAST Free Antivirus. There are several other options however, so be sure to take the time to research them on your own before purchasing anything!

♦ For those that have already been affected by these web spammers, I hope this article has helped you regain some of the functionality you had prior to ad-spam being such a big problem on the web today.