Spam Sites Infesting Google Search Results 207
The Google Watchdog blog is reporting that "Spam and virus sites infesting the Google SERPs in several categories" and speculates, ...Google's own index has been hacked. The circumvention of a guideline normally picked up by the Googlebot quickly is worrisome. The fact that none of the sites have real content and don't appear to even be hosted anywhere is even more scary. How did millions of sites get indexed if they don't exist?
Nothing New (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:SEOs (Score:5, Interesting)
I Bet It's a Simpler Explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine that spammers could band together or simply get botnets 'clicking' as independent IP addresses links that boost their page rank. That's how it worked with Bush, they simply linked his homepage as "miserable failure" and suddenly he was the number one result from that query in Google.
I find this more likely an explanation than someone changing the data or values in the database. There's going to be plenty of evidence left in the logs & it's not like nobody's going to notice. This is Google's bread & butter, no amount of money in the world could entice a worker to mess with it. They would have to be exceptionally stupid as the lawsuits that follow would be in the billions.
Re:SEOs (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what makes this scary -- as I said, I thought google was already on the lookout for such scams, and if they're being beat on such a large scale it might mean a major shift in google's strategy is in order...
Re:SEOs (Score:5, Interesting)
specific phrases? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to check it out myself.
Re:Not hosted anywhere? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure it's not his browser that's porked? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sure it's not his browser that's porked? (Score:1, Interesting)
Search for "vnc pips e61" without the quotes and check page 7. There are some in other pages, but that one has the most.
Re:I Bet It's a Simpler Explanation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Search Engine Pessimisation (Score:1, Interesting)
This Finding was Validated (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2188281,00.asp [pcmag.com]
Also, the Reg noticed - after my Slashdot posting, for once - so they are chasing this tail!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/01/google_spam_infiltration/ [theregister.co.uk]
Wheee!
Re:I call Bullshit!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Still waiting for them to allow weighting of search terms, though