PDA

View Full Version : google search results hijacked


andyman
11-03-2005, 07:50 PM
Has anyone else seen this happen ?
you search Google click the link you want and get a different website ?
you can't click back you need to use the drop down box
click the link again different site (not porn but related to search)
Third time you get the real website !
does not happen with other search engines only google.
Thoughts ...
frostyone
11-03-2005, 10:00 PM
Why not?

search for "thecomputermechanics"

If you actually examine the url on the true google site you'll find a redirect anyways
It's normal.
The actual url for TCM on Google is :
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.thecomputermechanics.com/&e=9797

It's googles way of keeping track.

Msn search by contrast , does not use a redirect
The url is simply:
http://www.thecomputermechanics.com/

Perhaps you hijack the redirect.

I don't know of a hijacker that does that specifically.
But there's tons of them out there.

Some other search engines use redirects, some don't .
But google certainly does.
andyman
11-03-2005, 10:50 PM
redirects ... they are in Business now.
interesting .. thanks for the input frostyone :)
kibboy
11-03-2005, 10:50 PM
Most likely it's the site that is auto redirecting you. This being the case, it's not googles fault and certainly not a jack.


kibb
frostyone
11-03-2005, 11:08 PM
Possible that a site reads the referrer as originating from google, and then knowingly or unknowingly redirects only google referrers, and no one else.
But I don't know why a number of sites would do this knowingly.
kibboy
11-04-2005, 06:10 PM
Mostly it happens because the site wants to rank high with certain search terms, so they spam their page content with the key words, in various font sizes and name there files make_free_money.html or something to that affect. Then they add code to redirect any user to a site with their accont id in the URL - makemoney.com/?affiliate=spammer . Then, if you buy anything on that site they receive a cut.

Although it's possible that may not be the case in this example, it's a fairly common tactic. We just don't see it that often because it's difficult to rank high on the search list without 1000s of external links to that site.

kibb