THIS IS A LOG OF THE ONGOING FIXES I AM TAKING TO ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE! I apologize for the inconvenience in the mean time!
TL: DR VERSION: IF THE DOJO IS REDIRECTING YOU, CLEAR YOUR BROWSER CACHE. THIS FIXES THINGS IMMEDIATELY. DO A MALWARE SCAN TO BE SAFE. THEN BOOK MARK THE DOJO AND USE THAT BOOKMARK INSTEAD OF GOING THROUGH GOOGLE OR EXTERNAL REFERRERS.
I was told recently that the Dojo was redirecting people to bad sites. I saw a video of it. And today, I actually experienced it myself first hand. It took me to a few dodgy sites of various natures. Then… it just started behaving normally. Both my friends were getting dodgy sites until they cleared their browser cache.
So I spoke with my webhost about any potential issues and they are reporting to me that the site is clean and there are no issues. So here’s the best practice for you should this happen to you:
Clear your browser cache. Then try again. This seems to resolve the issue immediately.
As far as I can tell this is an issue on GOOGLE’s end. Both friends and myself were all running into issues when accessing the site FROM a google search. When you access the site directly by typing the url into the location bar you won’t have an issue. Additionally if you make a bookmark you won’t have an issue. This is an issue with GOOGLE.
I will attempt to see what I can do about that, but they generally aren’t too responsive or helpful. It’s best practice to book mark the dojo and use your book mark directly so you can’t be redirected to some weird site.
My apologies for anyone who has had to deal with this!
ONE LAST THING ABOUT SITE REDIRECTS: I am learning there was apparently a pretty recent adware / malware that was redirecting google search results. It behaves EXACTLY like what I described yesterday and yes clearing the cache fixes it. So regardless— IT AIN’T THE DOJO FOLKS.
FOR GOOGLE CHROME DESKTOP/LAPTOP/TABLET USERS:
For now the redirect issue only seems to work under the very specific conditions that you are trying to use the main url called from a referrer of any kind. Meaning if you follow a link from google, twitter, etc or anyone who throws in a referral tag. When you put in the url directly into your url bar there is never an issue! Here’s something google chrome users on desktop can do to prevent the issue entirely. Under your settings navigate to privacy and safety and you will see this option for pop ups and redirects:
Under Pop Ups and Redirects you will see the option to NEVER allow pop ups and redirects. This is just good practice anyway. But also for extra protection you can add the dojo’s url to the sites Chrome never allows to redirect and you will never have the issue ever again.
I will keep reading until I find similar fixes for Opera and Firefox or mobile devices. Initially this was the one I found that worked best.
HOW TO USE GOOGLE SAFELY TO NAVIGATE TO THE DOJO:
I am aware that some platforms (like mobile) might not even have a secondary option. Google is your default. Luckily I have a pseudo work around for that to safely take you to the dojo anyway. As stated above, the very specific situations that take you away from the dojo and to a bad redirect are that you use the main url (http://www.ravensdojo.com). It appears that there is NO ISSUE when using any variation of that URL. So when you use google to find the dojo if you click ANY of the additional links you can simply and safely navigate to the dojo as intended.
In this instance, if your google search results look like this then ANY of the highlighted links would be fine and would NOT redirect.
If your search results look like this (far more typical of Mobile browsers and this shot is from Google’s specific app) then any of the highlight links would still be totally safe from bad redirects.
AS AN ADDED PROTECTION FOR MY USERS:
I have gone in to every dojo external social site (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) and changed the link to the dojo to be the Dojo Issue List. This should help you if that’s how you like to go to the dojo.
I am also working with Google’s site tools and will probably have to redesign the dojo a bit. Just working on this as much as I can to try and take care of it!