What is this Viglink?

About This Message Board
1

In another thread, I came across this post, which is a throwaway line by CurtC, containing a joke URL. However, on my Chrome browser, that link is actually active, and hovering over it reveals the tooltip, “Link added by VigLink.”.

A bit of googling reveals what VigLink kind of is, but not where the link gets added. Is it malware on my computer, something in Chrome, or an ad on the SDMB?

(On preview, I note that the single post page does not contain the link, but the full thread does, and it also appears when someone quotes the post later in the thread)

2

Moderator Action

Since this concerns the SDMB, I am moving this to ATMB.

Moving thread from General Questions to About This Message Board.

3

Viglink is basically a click tracking service. Basically, if you click on any link on the SDMB, the link goes to viglink which counts the click and then forwards you to wherever the link goes to. The SDMB then gets a (fairly small) amount of revenue from the clicks.

This was intentionally added to the SDMB a few yeas ago. It is not malware.

It’s generally transparent to the people using this site, but if it causes problems, it can be disabled by using a script blocker (which will also disable some other functions on the SDMB).

4

Now, I haven’t clicked the link, and I have no intention of doing so, but doesn’t that potentially get CurtC into trouble for breaking the 2-clicks rules for NSFW content?

5

Does it throw the numbers off if people include fictitious links to, say, fnordgateway.com?

Huh. Apparently VigLink is all about the backdoor sluts, but fnords & gateways? Not so much.

6

I have found that Viglink screws up external links on at least some mobile browsers, making it somewhat annoying to view the board from my iPad. So if the revenue this provides is truly small, TPTB might consider disabling it to avoid making the board less attractive to people surfing from mobile devices.

7

Oh, weird… my faux link wasn’t Viglinked when I first posted, but now it is. Guess it’s just a little slow.

8

I personally wasn’t aware that Viglink was making links where none existed before (I have Viglink scripts disabled on my computer). Since CurtC didn’t intentionally put a link in his post I can’t see how he could be punished for violating the 2 click rule. However, this does make it clear that there is a potential issue here.

I have notified the admins and other mods via the mod loop about this issue.

9

Here’s what I got when I clicked on that link (because you just knew someone would!)

10

For what it’s worth, I had never seen that “Link added by VigLink” hover until today when I noticed it on the same post Teuton linked to above. I guess it’s possible that it’s been there for a few years and I never noticed before, but the timing is odd that we both discovered it for the first time today.

Maybe VigLink has become more aggressive about adding links lately?

11

A quick search turns up lots of thread from the past 3+ years about VigLink, so I guess it’s my poor observational skills. Or maybe a recent update added the mouse-over text.

12

Viglink has been around before, but this is the first I’ve seen of this issue.

Let me test something I’ve done before: including a URL without a link.

[noparse]http://www.tasvideos.org[/noparse]

If that becomes a link, there’s definitely something strange going on that is new.

Edit: it did. Viglink has apparently added a new auto-linking service. What in the world do they get out of that? If it redirected me to an ad first or something, it would make a lot more sense.

13

I presume you unchecked “automatically parse links” for that post?

14

Since the link does go to a NSFW site, inadvertently or not, I’d like to request that you (or Colibri or samclem, whoever happens to catch the report) break the link (or delete it since it’s a joke, anyway). And the link in the quote in post #28 in that thread. It shows up on my iPhone, and as Giraffe noted, on iPad and other mobile browsers.

15

Done.

Incidentally, unchecking the “parse links” box on a post is not the best way to produce a non-clickable link, since the link will be parsed whenever someone quotes the post. It’s better to use a spoiler box in order to comply with the “two clicks” rule for NSFW links.

16

This has been brought to Jerry’s attention, we’ll see wha’ happens and where it goes.

17

Why do you ask? Are you pining for the fnords?
Note: In fourteen years of bad jokes, that was my first “Dead Parrot sketch” joke. They all seemed too cheap and obvious, even for me. I guess I am cheaper and more obvious than I was before, though I don’t know how I could be.

18

No, I used [noparse], so it could even be quoted without problems.

And now that I’ve blocked Viglink with my adblocker, it’s no longer a link. Site’s faster, too.

19

Jerry sez it’s not likely to cause a problem and points out that it is more likely a user will post a dangerous link than Viglink auto-generating one.

So for us it’s not an issue. Viglink generated links do not exist anywhere on the SDMB web server or in its database. They are created in each person’s browser after the HTML page has been delivered by the web server but before it is shown in the browser window. From the SDMB web server perspective Viglink generated links do not exist.

It will make us look more carefully for violations of the two-click rule for material not safe for work so be aware when you link, please.

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Also, for anyone having the link mangling issue I mentioned, apparently you can disable Viglink on a given machine/device at the following link: Privacy Center - Sovrn, Inc.