Any other Hostwinds users here? Website link hijacked

Jrim_Software · Dec 15, 2011

Hi all

I noticed today that the link on my website to what used to be Wordpress.com has been hijacked by my host, Hostwinds. I think this is extremely shady and I would not recommend the hosting...

My footer.php of my theme file has clearly been modified, and even incorrectly so:

Code:

<p><?php _e('Powered by', 'woothemes') ?> <a href="http://www.http://www.hostwinds.com/hosting/Wordpress-Hosting.html">Wordpress</a>.</p>

Obviously the html href tag was butchered. I don't know if the host did a mass search/replace on their clients' files for the Wordpress link and replaced it to a link to their Wordpress hosting, but I find it extremely odd and dishonest.

Is anybody else here a Wordpress hosted user through Hostwinds? Can you check to see if you have the same issue?

healzer · Dec 15, 2011

I am with hostwinds......... weird

deadmad7 · Dec 28, 2011

I'm with Hostwinds also, nothing has changed for me.

ezbnc · Dec 28, 2011

That is shady if it was done by your host know telling how many more times it has been if it is true.

natorob · Dec 28, 2011

Just checked and I'm not seeing anything strange either. So far, HW has been fine for the blogs/sites I have put on there...

_Sunny_ · Dec 28, 2011

had this problem as well....dunno if its with them or something else.
I had shared my ftp details with someone.
The site was redirected to porn.com, i blamed that person.
I changed my pwd etc and yesterday the Page title of my site, meta keywords were changed to some sex related keywords....m confused!

RMX · Dec 28, 2011

It's a common thing if you use an auto installer. Hosts sometimes have such thing to advertise themselves. Did you use an auto-installer to install your blog?

lukeg28 · Dec 28, 2011

Before you go blaming host winds check the template you use there was a incident I had back last year when I was using free template and there was some kind of coding in the footer.php file which changed the footer links, and this was from a website ranked number 1 for free Wordpress templates

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

KayTeePK · Dec 28, 2011

Contact their support . Issue is with your template .
Hostwinds is a reliable hosting they dont do like that to make customers unhappy .

_Sunny_ · Dec 28, 2011

renarssilters said:
It's a common thing if you use an auto installer. Hosts sometimes have such thing to advertise themselves. Did you use an auto-installer to install your blog?

mine was an html site....no one-click install

Earthquake · Dec 28, 2011

never had any issues

contact their support team. its top notch

Jrim_Software · Jan 9, 2012

Hi all,

I had forgotten that this thread existed and I am sad to see it bumped. I don't want to see Hostwinds get any bad press because of this.

I contacted Hostwinds about the issue and I had a response within the hour stating that they had tried an experiment for their clients using the Wordpress autoinstaller to replace footer links. The experiment was only meant to affect Wordpress hosting clients but obviously more clients were (unintentionally) affected.

Hostwinds apologized profusely for the oversight and compensated me properly. While I was upset by feeling that I was betrayed by my host and violated, they helped to restore my trust with their swift attention to the matter and the straight forward nature of the response (rather than a B.S. approach).

I am not affiliated with Hostwinds in any way but I wanted others to know that this matter was resolved promptly and properly. I will continue to do business with Hostwinds.

Chees · Jan 9, 2012

OP you should edit the first post. It sounds like really bad publicity for HW. And as we see its not deserved.

jairathnem · Jan 9, 2012

Jrim_Software said:
Hi all,

I had forgotten that this thread existed and I am sad to see it bumped. I don't want to see Hostwinds get any bad press because of this.

I contacted Hostwinds about the issue and I had a response within the hour stating that they had tried an experiment for their clients using the Wordpress autoinstaller to replace footer links. The experiment was only meant to affect Wordpress hosting clients but obviously more clients were (unintentionally) affected.

Hostwinds apologized profusely for the oversight and compensated me properly. While I was upset by feeling that I was betrayed by my host and violated, they helped to restore my trust with their swift attention to the matter and the straight forward nature of the response (rather than a B.S. approach).

I am not affiliated with Hostwinds in any way but I wanted others to know that this matter was resolved promptly and properly. I will continue to do business with Hostwinds.

Why where they experimenting this at all? If its free hosting they can advertise their links.
I am not happy at all with this.

Jrim_Software · Jan 11, 2012

Chees said:
OP you should edit the first post. It sounds like really bad publicity for HW. And as we see its not deserved.

It is too old, I can't edit it or I would have.

download · Jan 11, 2012

Jrim_Software said:
Hi all

I noticed today that the link on my website to what used to be Wordpress.com has been hijacked by my host, Hostwinds. I think this is extremely shady and I would not recommend the hosting...

My footer.php of my theme file has clearly been modified, and even incorrectly so:

Code:

<p><?php _e('Powered by', 'woothemes') ?> <a href="http://www.http://www.hostwinds.com/hosting/Wordpress-Hosting.html">Wordpress</a>.</p>

Obviously the html href tag was butchered. I don't know if the host did a mass search/replace on their clients' files for the Wordpress link and replaced it to a link to their Wordpress hosting, but I find it extremely odd and dishonest.

Is anybody else here a Wordpress hosted user through Hostwinds? Can you check to see if you have the same issue?

Mine was hijacked as well. I was also using a Woo Theme, Ambience. Same link, found out about it a few weeks ago but didn't make a big deal of it.

Patel · Jan 11, 2012

Peter said that they were testing replacing the default autoinstall link with the hostwinds link, and some people happened to do an install. They decided against it.

Hostwinds · Jan 11, 2012

download said:
Mine was hijacked as well. I was also using a Woo Theme, Ambience. Same link, found out about it a few weeks ago but didn't make a big deal of it.

I sent you a PM you will be compensated

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