Most websites use 3rd-party ad networks. To prevent ad fraud, these 3rd-party ad networks require that the ads are served from their own 3rd-party server. This makes it easy for adblockers to distinguish between ad-traffic and content.
> “1.) Making all ad traffic route through the origin website.”
AFAIK, ad networks don’t want to do this because it would allow the origin website to tamper with the traffic and commit ad fraud.
However, there are some ways to make it look like it’s coming from the origin website (when it’s really not):
- CNAME cloaking: set the DNS record of one of your sub-domains to point to an ad network (b.example.com -> adnetwork.com). This method used to be effective, but now adblockers (such as uBlock Origin) will check the DNS records for CNAMEs and prevent this.
- Instart Logic: I don’t quite understand how, but somehow this company successfully (!) made 3rd-party requests look like 1st-party (on Chrome only. Firefox doesn’t have this issue). A separate extension, uBlock Origin Extra, is required in order to un-disguise these ads.
There is more. Facebook runs its own ads, so it doesn’t rely on a 3rd-party. It has been successfully disguising Sponsored posts as normal posts for years. Adblockers still can’t distinguish between the two. https://www.dylanpaulus.com/2019-11-24-how-fb-avoids-adblock...