Viglink spam

Hi all,
I recently started a forum type blog with forumotion and am now having second thoughts and regrets. There are lots available and forumotion sounded ideal. I write articles with a number of academic and information references and after a few weeks find that ‘Viglinks’ has literally taken over 90% of the links in the articles and it now resembles a spam farm!
I’ve excluded the site from the SEO inclusion board and yes, I’ve switched off the underlining for guests, all to no avail . . . no wonder it’s been so difficult to get good SEO and initially I wondered why! The only option I have left is to take out the reference keywords, or try another forum provider that isn’t so spam driven. Transparent advertising yes, but the way ‘Viglinks’ has taken over my post references and headers is ridiculous. Is anyone else having this problem and is there a way to get rid of this intrusive spam maker?

In the admin panel - settings--
See if you have activated this:
Activation of text ads for guests (underlined):

If you do not have it then check the extensions of your browser or possibly you will have a malware on your pc download the Malwarebytes and pass it to your PC.
Forumotion does not post spam in its forums

Hello,

Why did you put this in the suggestion section? This should be in the support section.

What Jucarese said about disabling that option in the admin panel is correct and should resolve your problem.

Edit: After reading your post further, I see you have done this already. May you please provide the url to your forum so that I or another staff member can have a look at your site and see if the problem occurs for us or not.


-Brandon

brandon_g wrote:Hello,

Why did you put this in the suggestion section? This should be in the support section.

What Jucarese said about disabling that option in the admin panel is correct and should resolve your problem.

Edit: After reading your post further, I see you have done this already. May you please provide the url to your forum so that I or another staff member can have a look at your site and see if the problem occurs for us or not.


-Brandon

Forum
An example is TEFL Teacher Inner Mongolia
On this page 13 links (including header and category) are ‘Link added by VigLink’. Every one of my social media buttons (top right hand index page) are VigLink redirects . . .
I didn’t allow VigLink on my forum and this appears to be a problem across all free forum sites. I don’t have add-ons or plug-ins and I have already checked the site for malware.

Have you checked to see if you have text ads activated?

AP > General > Forum > Configuration

SLGray wrote:Have you checked to see if you have text ads activated?

AP > General > Forum > Configuration

Reduce the number of displays for image advertisments : = yes
Activate ads (choice of ‘all’, or ‘members and guests’) A fine display of semantics there. If you’re not a member or guest, who else would you be? =‘members or guests’.
Text ads activation for guests (underlined) = no.
Allow sponsored content at the bottom of the page = no.

This is not an isolated instance, if you Google this spyware it’s rampant across free forums, but reflects particularly badly on forumotion, which is otherwise a decent set up. This VigLink is like a virus, it literally changes forum content. Is it happening to others on forumotion? Word of this happening to others on free sites is all across the Internet. No one wants a forum, free or not, where links are hijacked to ebay and amazon, with 404’s included. Look at the example I gave above again, I doubt there’s a magic button somewhere in configuration that stops that. Now, my site has been hacked, or forumotion is allowing this. Which one is it?

hello and welcome

as far as i know Viglink is an addon to your browser its not on the forum, but on your computer..even though they say it's not malware, it  is malware that somehow was installed without you knowing about it... probably came along with something else you installed somewhere along the line (example cloudflare)

these instructions will help you to remove viglink..
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-viglink-bypasser/
http://windowsproblemshelpcenter.blogspot.gr/2014/12/remove-apiviglinkcom-and-wwwadcashcom.html 
http://computerissuescenter.blogspot.gr/2015/07/get-rid-of-apiviglinkcom-step-by-step.html

Hello,

What Skouliki says sounds true and it is most likely a add on to your browser or something in your pc causing the issue.

I viewed several topics on your forum (including the one you linked to), I do not see any links other then the ones that were added by you in words as refrences to the articles. I see no other links or any links for that matter that say 'added by viglink' . That said, this sounds like it is competely your end and most likely an add on to your browser like skouliki said.

I would go through and unistall any addons you have on your browser and then run an antivirus scan to make sure there are no viruses and the like on your computer that could possibly be contributing to the links.

-Brandon

Thanks brandon and Skouliki,
I checked out those links this evening and can’t find anything. I use a USB stick daily on known infected computers and have USB Disk Security, plus Malwarebytes and MSE, all running in real time. I also have a free version of SUPERAntiSpyware clean up around three times a day. Spyware hunter from one of the links? No thanks, that does has some bad reviews!

If they’re not showing up for anyone else only me, then yes, the fault must be at my end and if that’s the case I’ll need to work on that, but foremost, I’ll offer a sincere apology to forumotion, which I’ve already said is a good piece of set up, slap my own wrist and thank you all for your help.
Topic closed? Cheers from China.

for your information, i checked your forum and i dont see any redirect links either 
(laptop, Chrome, Mozilla and Explorer)

It is fine asia teacher. We are just trying to help you solve your issues. I know having issues with links and the like can be rather frustating. Like I said, I would recommend running a full virus security scan of your computer and uninstall any toolbars or add ons to your browser. Then I would also have your virus security software scan each program in your computer indiviually for threats. Then finally I would take some extra effort to watch where you download or install programs and stuff from. Try to download or install from well known, trusted sites and if you must download or install something from an unfamilar or sketchy site, have your virus security run a check on both the site and the download file before you install. Most times any good virus security software will catch an infected file before you install the infected program and save you from catching a virus.

Since this topic has been marked solved, I will go ahead and archive it. If you need any other assistance on this issue please don't hestitate to send myself or another staff member a pm with the link to this topic to request an unlock and we will unlock it for you.

-Brandon

Topic solved and archived ~ brandon_g Please read our forum rules: ESF General Rules