Protect Your Site Against UserCash and Other Scumbags
In this brief article I explain the atrocity that is UserCash and then provide the JavaScript needed to protect your site.
What is UserCash?
UserCash is an online advertising program that uses redirects and frames to exploit your site with advertisements. UserCash customers link to target sites using rewritten URL’s generated via the UserCash “generator/compiler.” There are two types of these rewritten UserCash links:
- Links that use frames to create banner-like ads above your pages
- Links that use frames to deploy landing-page ads before your pages
As of now, all UserCash links assume the following generalized format:
http://1z2l3e4gt6y44k7wqld9.usercash.com
UserCash then pays 70 cents (or less) for every 9999 top-frame clicks or 70 cents for every 3999 landing-page clicks. Let’s just pause for a moment to contemplate the implications of this idiocy:
- UserCash is paying people to exploit sites that may not belong to them.
- UserCash advertisements are low-quality, unwanted cheap spam junk ads.
- UserCash pays 70 cents for 9999 ads, or, 70 bucks for a million ads.
- UserCash is littering the Web with their cheap garbage advertisements.
- UserCash will pay people to put garbage ads on any site — even yours.
- Even Google is susceptible to this type of advertising (see screenshot).
I find it remarkably sad that there are people who are eager to force scummy spam ads upon others just to make a quick buck. It is also utterly pathetic that people are willing to sell out their own sites with such a blatantly cheap advertising stunt. Nonetheless, rather than continuing with this rant, let’s focus on a way to protect our sites against UserCash and any other site that tries to frame our pages..
Protect your site against UserCash and other framing scumbags
Fortunately, preventing scumbags such as UserCash from placing ads on your site is relatively easy. Simply link to or place the following JavaScript in the <head> of your web pages:
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--//--><![CDATA[//><!--
// break out of frames @ http://perishablepress.com/press/2007/12/03/protect-your-site-against-usercash-and-other-scumbags/
if (top.location != self.location)
top.location = self.location;
//--><!]]>
</script>With this code in place, your pages will automatically “break out” of any enclosing frames. Of course, this method requires that JavaScript be enabled on the visitor’s browser, which happens to be the case for a large majority. When JavaScript is available, this code is highly effective at breaking your pages out of frames. This trick was taken from my article, HTML Frames Notes Plus.
Related articles
- One Link to Open Them All
- Industrial-Strength Spamless Email Links
- How to Block IP Addresses with PHP
- Stupid htaccess Trick: Enable File or Directory Access to Your Password-Protected Site
- JavaScript Notes Plus
- Website Cluster Graphs
- Have Peace of Mind
About this article
This is article #451, posted by Perishable on Monday, December 03, 2007 @ 10:21am. Categorized as Websites, and tagged with ads, frames, javascript, security, tutorial. Updated on December 03, 2007. Visited 8201 times. 13 Responses »
Bookmark • Trackback • Comment • Subscribe • Explore
« How to Add Meta Noindex to Your Feeds • Up • Perishable Press Now Featured on Planet WordPress »
1 • December 29, 2007 at 10:11 pm — psilo says:
thanks, I had worked out another solution but yours is much simpler, going with it. damn usercash..