The Ad That Must Not Be Named...

[ABSpareEditor]

As we are all well aware we have had an incredibly irritating issue with a particularly clever ad that seemed determined to interrupt specific people on our lovely site.

We have been working hard over the weekend to get to the root of this. And our techie gnomes have discovered it likes to be named, so any threads naming this ad (beginning with a 'g', and ending with an 's') were triggering the ad to show.

For this reason we have deleted all threads, both old and new, that mention this terrible ad by name. It's not that we're deleting your threads because we don't care - quite the opposite!

The advice of 'please clear your cache' still stands true, if you have seen the ad, please clear your cache (comment below if you need any help on your specific browser, but a quick google should help you). And let's never talk of this terrible ad again! Doing so will cause it to rear it's ugly head!

[ToraToraTora]

Hang on so are they claiming to have fixed it? I'll soon know in the morning.

[Jahulaye]

“This is the only way to get rid of it for good, is to find all its demon brothers and sisters.”

I love that analogy.

Yes what we need is a digital exorcism.

[jno]

"The power of gnome commands you..."

[ToraToraTora]

spathi I was referring to jourdain above: "Thank goodness that that ad has gone."

[bookbinder]

Ed, just get rid of the thing! It's still around, and it's jolly annoying!

[Bigbad]

It’s not ‘going’, spathiphyllum

See my post at the bottom of page 2.

[Bigbad]

^^ although I logged in OK today, the page 2 post took about 6 attempts to log in, as AB kept switching to you-know what.
I’ve been on a few minutes, and so far about 8 switches.

[Gromit]

Sounds as the the problem isn’t solved. It is even difficult to gauge whether occurances have lessened, or if it is the same. It will be interesting to hear Tora’s feedback.

[ToraToraTora]

Bad as ever, see my new post

[ABSpareEditor]

Hi TTT, please could you stop new threads about this issue. We're monitoring this thread so any updates you have for us can be written in here.

Thank you.

[Gromit]

Sorry to hear that TTT.

AB-SE.
Are people experiencing this on their mobile devices? Is your phone or tablet getting the problem site ?

I mainly post from iOS and have had no problems. From the posts I have read, it seems to be PC and Mac users suffering mainly (but that might be because AB users are mainly using desktops).

[dunnitall]

I had it happen on my PC yesterday but didn't know much about it until this thread. I haven't had it on my iPad thank goodness. What a nightmare it is after experiencing it yesterday hope it doesn't occur on the iPad after I've mentioned it now....

[ABSpareEditor]

Okay everyone, we're now beginning the process of turning off ad networks one by one, as one working theory is that the unmentionable has a sibling ad that's triggering the redirect to the g-hastly site.

Please continue to keep us in the loop on this thread on whether the unmentionable happens again.

Thank you again for all of your patience, and for working with us during this time!!

[Bertrum]

The advert that is always present is the Ali-X advert

[Gromit]

AB spare Ed,

There was a question (since pulled) on 2nd November, which had *the site we cannot mention* in the title.

https://www.theanswerbank.co.**/Shopping/Question1578050.html

Could that be when the advert was first delivered to AB (I understand that the AD software scrapes keywords to send relevent advertisements).

[ABSpareEditor]

We have blocked "a***" and "g*****" from all of our Ad network suppliers, so it should not be being pulled. We have also blocked "m***t*g.com" due to it being mentioned.

This means they should no longer be appearing on the website.