Comments on: Norton Image Blocking

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:52:01 +0000

Very useful post. And the comment about using the word “banner” in the image… solved the same problem we were having on a client’s website. Many thanks!!

By: vividBlu

vividBlu — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:05:06 +0000

Thanks again for this post. Had the same problem, but Norton seamed to be blocking images on pages only because they were of dimensions 250px by 250px. These dimensions were not on the list given above. Wander how many other image sizes are on it’s “black list”!

By: Badger

Badger — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 10:39:09 +0000

Thanks Terri, that’s a handy link – definitely worth bookmarking.

By: Terri Stalker

Terri Stalker — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:55:49 +0000

I had the same problem on my website. One of my customers could not see some links in their admin panel. They just were not showing up. I racked my brain and could not see what why it was so.

Because logic that shows the links in their admin panel is so variable (e.g shown according to what products they have, whether they have ever spent money, if they need to renew subscriptions etc) I spent a good few hours checking the logic of the code trying to find the bug.

The customer even mentioned they had Norton running and suggested it was adblocking software causing it – I, stupidly, said “No, it can’t be that, because the links are not ads!”. How wrong was I!
;o)

I ended up driving 100 miles to their house and sat down at their computer to see how it looked from their point of view. Sure enough Norton’s AntiNet software was blocking the links because it they contained a key/value pair with the word ‘ad’ in it.

Now if a customer complains that something is not working, the first thing i do i send them to do the ‘Circle Test – Test Your PC for Ad Blocking Software’, to find out if they have problems.
Here’s the one i use:
http://www.startinbusiness.co.uk/spot_diff/spot_the_difference.htm

By: Badger

Badger — Fri, 20 May 2005 13:01:12 +0000

Norton won’t like the word “banners” being in the URL of the image either. In addition to blocking images of certain dimensions, it has a long, long list of keywords that trigger the blocking too. You can find a partial list here – basically you have to avoid anything that sounds remotely like an ad-related term. Hope this was of some use – and that it doesn’t create too much extra work for you!

By: Mr. Torture

Mr. Torture — Fri, 20 May 2005 12:32:19 +0000

Wow, I’m glad I found this article… I’ve been having the same exact problems on my forum. I had multiple users who were saying they couldn’t see the banners… yet I could. Reading your post was like deja vu… I had one guy send me a screenshot, then the page source… and yeah, deja vu. I didn’t think my banners were at am ‘advertising’ resolution (675×225)…? Or do you think they were blocked because they were in a “banners” directory? Then they reported that when they turned Norton off, the banners worked… which led to the Google search which sent me here.

Long story short, thanks for posting this. ;]