A Blog Bug squashed: SITEMETER compromised, malware

Bloggers… you should also pay attention.

Some of you have reported, when coming to this blog, the odd phenomenon of being redirected to some odd page elsewhere in these interwebs.  It is a rare phenomenon, but troubling.

Some of you have reported, and I have seen it myself and have worked to extirpate it, seeing x.vindicosuite.com when pages load.

15_05_27_screenshot_01

I think the problem has been tracked down.

For years I have used Sitemeter as a way to keep statistics here, for visits, page load, return visits, etc.  It seems that Sitemeter itself is compromised.  Lately I have been having some problems with Sitemeter.  Some days stats are counted, other days they are not.  The meter that is supposed to appear on this blog with visit counts works or doesn’t work.  For days at a time I can’t access my account.

15_06_30_sitemeter_01

Sitemeter stinks right now.  You can’t even send a support request.

So, alas, I removed Sitemeter for the time being.  Let’s see what difference that makes.

I don’t believe that any readers here would have been compromised by the Sitemeter problem.

Finally, I refer the readership to my Litany For The Conversion Of Internet Thugs.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

10 Comments

  1. wiseskier says:

    Father Z, perhaps try Google Analytics? It’s free and tied to your Google account. You embed some code in the meta of your blog pages and it produces very nice (free) reports on visitors and clicks.

  2. Agreed with wiseskier Father, Google Analytics is pretty much the standard, implementation is easy, stats are probably better than most paid services, and its Google so it’s not going to get hacked.

  3. kekeak2008 says:

    I was redirected every other time I visited your website. I hope that problem is resolved.

  4. Re: Google Analytics… I didn’t fall off the internet turnip truck yesterday, folks.

  5. Elizabeth D says:

    Thank you so much for fixing the redirect thing, that was really weird and driving me crazy. Have you heard about WordPress Jetpack stats? (KIDDING!)

  6. Elizabeth:

    What’s WordPress?

  7. Elizabeth D says:

    Poor Father hit his head pretty good after he fell off that turnip truck. Then he got a lot of traffic from the sympathetic “pray for Father Z” posts from every other blog, friend or foe. However, with no hit counter he was unaware.

  8. majuscule says:

    I agree about Google™ and the Turnip Truck™

  9. Pigeon says:

    I got redirected just now from wdtprs.com main page to myspace. Truth is, I didn’t know myspace still existed. I guess the only way they get traffic now is to hijack other sites.

  10. SuzyQ says:

    I have been redirected to MySpace fairly frequently in the past but it hadn’t happen for a week or so, until just now. I was hoping the removal of Sitemeter might have fixed the problem. It appears perhaps not. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Comments are closed.