EVE New Citizens Q&A

I'm not sure how people keep ganking me in data sites. Do they use scanner probes to find me? What is the best way to avoid getting blown up in these sites?

They can use combat scanner probes to locate and warp to ships. And for this reason, you should have your overview set to show scanning probes, so you can quickly cloak up or leave whenever your D-scan shows them nearby.

But yes, if I were out to kill explorers, I would simply scan all the stuff down first, and then warp to it, cloak up, and wait for an explorer to warp in and start hacking. I'd probably wait until he was on the last container before blowing him up to maximize my profit from the kill.

Not much way to avoid this, but you can mitigate it a bit by clicking "show info" on every last person you see displayed in local. People with severely negative security status in local should always be a warning sign, though it's not always a true guide.

Others have pretty much already covered it, but simply just be aware, you can constantly d-scan to see if anything is in warp to you, and you can even stay aligned out as much as possible so that if someone does land on grid, you can warp out instantly.

Your last death was from a Proteus. I'd say in that case you were a target of opportunity and were scanned down (if that happened in a site). It's only a guess, of course, but I think it's unlikely that someone uses a Proteus to wait at sites to kill explorers. If you check the killboard of your attacker you'll notice that there are all kinds of ships.

Your death before that was from a Hound that was equipped with rockets. In that case it's safe to assume that the Hound was already at the site waiting for you. The usage of rockets on a bomber is typical for exploration hunters. And if you check the killboard of your attacker you'll see that the last 9 kills are exploration ships.
Here's a recent video that explains how to fit a Manticore (you can use any SB and Manti is not the best for this imho) and kill explorers in low and null: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIUy3-_efts

Your death before that - your first at all - seems to be from a gatecamp. I would assume you got caught when you jumped from Amdonen (hi sec) to Ami (low sec). A gatecamp would also explain the high number of kills in Ami on the killboards of your attackers.