GoAdScanner
See what your ads really do
GoAdScanner is the ad scanner built into GoAdserver. It opens your ads and their landing pages in a real browser, the way a visitor in a given country and on a given device meets them, and reports what they do: malicious domains, forced redirects, pop-ups, push-permission prompts, crypto miners, fingerprinting and more.
Every scan produces a report with a screenshot, the redirect chain and each flagged event, at a link you can send to whoever served the ad.
DETECT
Malicious and suspicious domains, malware, crypto miners, forced redirects, pop-ups, push and alert abuse.
REPLAY
Scans run through proxies in the countries you pick, on desktop, phone, tablet, TV and console browser profiles.
PROVE
Each scan has a shareable report: screenshot, redirect chain, requests and every flagged event.
See GoAdScanner in action
One minute, one real scan: a bad ad caught in the act, and the report that proves it.
What GoAdScanner checks
Bad ads rarely misbehave when you test them yourself. They wait for the right country, device or browser. GoAdScanner scans the way your visitors arrive.
Malicious domains
Every domain an ad contacts is checked against Google Web Risk, VirusTotal and ReversingLabs, and comes back as malicious, suspicious, harmless or undetected.
Forced redirects and pop-ups
The scanner follows the whole chain from the ad to the final page and flags redirects of the page itself and windows the ad opens on its own.
Push, alerts and permissions
Requests for push-notification permission, browser alert dialogs and prompts for the camera, microphone or location.
Crypto miners and hidden code
Mining scripts, obfuscated JavaScript written to hide what an ad does, and service workers an ad registers.
Fingerprinting
Scripts that try to identify the visitor through canvas or audio fingerprinting.
Hidden content
Hidden or off-screen iframes and content that covers the page, the usual signs of click hijacking.
Who GoAdScanner is for
Ad networks
Keep self-serve and RTB demand clean.
- Scan the ads of your active campaigns on a schedule.
- Scan the landing pages of winning RTB bids, replayed in the country and on the device they served in.
- Refuse bids from a bad source; the ad servers apply it within 5 minutes.
- Send the advertiser the report link as proof.
Publishers
Know what outside networks serve on your pages.
- Scan the networks connected to your SmartZones.
- Check a new tag before it goes live: paste the HTML code, a URL or a VAST URL.
- Find out which network served a redirect after a visitor complains.
- Domain Check shows on which of your ad zones an advertiser domain ran.
Ad managers
Check your own campaigns and partners.
- Scan banner, native and video ads while they run.
- Follow VAST wrapper chains to the media file and click-through.
- Rotate browser and device per scan, from desktop Chrome to phones and smart TVs.
- Get alerts by email, Telegram or your notification channels.
GoAdScanner runs inside GoAdserver, next to your campaigns, zones and reports. Your platform switches it on; with the user-level option on, your advertisers and publishers get their own scanner too.
How a scan works
- Create a scan task. Choose what to scan (campaign ads, SmartZone networks, RTB landing pages or items you add yourself) and the scan type: ad, URL or VAST video.
- Choose where and how. Pick proxy countries, device types and browsers, the interval (daily, hourly or every minute) and the number of scans per interval.
- The scanner visits like a real user. Each item is opened in a real browser through a proxy in the chosen country, and everything it does is recorded. With Scan Landing Page Ads on, it also clicks the ads on the landing page and scans where they lead.
- Read the report and act. See the verdict, the screenshot, the redirect chain and every finding; get an alert, share the report, pause the network or refuse its bids.
Keep bad ads off your traffic
GoAdScanner is part of GoAdserver. Tell us what you want to scan and we switch it on for your platform, or read the full manual first.