Guide: How to Safeguard LPs from Chrome Flagging (6)

A few years ago I was running desktop toolbar installs on pop traffic, the usual media player/software update type pages. Chrome’s domain flagging .and exe flagging was quite an issue. I came up with a low-tech domain flagging solution that worked for me, so well I think kept running on the same domain for probably a good year, and stopped due to other reasons.

I’ve debated a lot about releasing this script because I don’t like the idea of making it easier to promote malware, aggressive tech support offers, etc. On the other hand, those running very aggressive offers are almost certainly cloaking anyway, which also accomplishes the same thing to a greater degree.

The “trick” is really pretty simple. The main cause of domain flags is just people reporting urls. The more traffic you drive, the greater the chance someone reports your url. This is why flagging is especially common on pops.





The solution is to make it so whatever url a visitor reports doesn’t actually work, or alternatively shows a different ‘safe’ page. This could be accomplished via a cloaker, but there’s also simple script solution : using HTML5’s browser history API to rewrite your urls.

Here’s the script:

 <script>
    (function(){
      var url = window.location.href;
      var newFile = (Math.random() + 1).toString(36).substr(2, 4);
    //   var newFile = 'hardcoded_name';
  
      var split = url.split("/");
  
    //   console.log(window.location.pathname)
    //   console.log(split[split.length - 1]); // ouput 
  
      // check if url path ends in trailing slash
      if (window.location.pathname.slice(-1) === "/") {
        split[split.length - 2] = "" + newFile;
      // otherwise assume it's a index file
      } else {
        index = split[split.length - 1];
        indexPrefix = index.substr(0, index.indexOf('.')); // get index prefix name
        indexSuffix = index.substr(index.indexOf('.')); // get everything starting from period
        split[split.length - 1] = newFile + indexSuffix; // rewrite prefix name + re-concatenate everything else
  
      }
  
      var newUrl = split.join("/");
  
      if (typeof window.history.replaceState === 'function') {
          history.replaceState({}, '', newUrl);
      }
    })();
  </script>

Into the newsletter this goes!! Mark my words - this will become one of the most popular posts this year!

Many thanks Kelly!



Amy

Awesome script! Thanks for sharing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You can just have a <noscript> tag in case JS is disabled and then say to redirect to whatever other page or campaign. Doesn't happen often to get browsers with JS disabled from my experience.

I'm not sure it helps for flagging though. From my experience, Google started flagging the whole domain rather quickly if you had a page submitted.

One way to have fewer issues is to use many domains for your landers and split them based on something so not all get flagged at the same time.

Anyway, another thing that could help is to block some ISPs that are not users but are crawlers, including some anti-virus companies. I have an older list that I shared but seems a fitting place to share it again.

Originally Posted by manu_adefy

You can just have a <noscript> tag in case JS is enabled and then say to redirect to whatever other page or campaign. Doesn't happen often to get browsers with JS disabled from my experience.

Originally Posted by manu_adefy

I'm not sure it helps for flagging though. From my experience, Google started flagging the whole domain rather quickly if you had a page submitted.

Originally Posted by thedudeabides

You mean in the case of the referrer still passing? That part was just a side effect, I'm sure there are better ways to mask referrers if that's a critical need.

I definitely don't think this script is going to let everyone off the hook - far from it, but it should at least help in making last domains longer and costs nothing to implement.

Nowadays I'm guessing the human element of reporting malicious urls in being superseded by software scanners like: https://www.virustotal.com



I believe google webmaster tools lets you know if your site has received a report - is that what you're referring to?