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Spam Sites Infesting Google Search Results

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hate-when-that-happens dept.

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?

8 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Google hacked, sites don't exist, um ... by icepick72 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Submitter says Google's index has been hacked which could imply the severe case: direct security threat and entry to it, or more likely: managing to get it to index something Google would not want it to index.

    Submitter asks: How did millions of sites get indexed if they don't exist?

    Okay, I call this an idiot story. Millions of sites come into being and go out of being all the time. What does this statement have to do with anything? It seems like submitter has a lack of understanding how basic Google and the web work, but the story has made it to Slashdot. I think the Slashdot IQ level is dropping because this is a Digg story.

  2. I call Bullshit!!! by Jennifer+York · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Any evidence to back that up? I seriously doubt that a single individual has the ability to make a change on production boxes without a committee of senior managers approving the change.

    Google will adjust, find the method of manipulating the page ranks, and close the hole.

    --
    Dominant Meme
    1. Re:I call Bullshit!!! by Billosaur · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It may not be a question of a single developer making changes, as much as a single developer (or group of them -- safety in numbers) divulging to certain third parties how the algorithms work in the page ranking system. It's very rare any company gives anyone production access to make changes, but then again I've seen that happen too, where something breaks, they give a developer access to patch it in a hurry before the hew and outcry set in, then forget to revoke his/her access. Of course Google is global, so any change would have to propagate through the system vis source control, so tracking it wouldn't be that hard. I doubt any developer, no matter how nefarious, would take the risk.

      --
      GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
  3. Re:SEOs by Tim+C · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At the very least GoogleBot could check if there are common blacklist words ("viagra" et al) on the website when identifying itself as IE or Firefox.

    So medical supply or information websites shouldn't be indexed by Google?

    I know what you're trying to do, but no word is 100% inappropriate. What if someone is actually looking for information on Viagra, or replica Swiss watches, or cheap stocks? What if someone is looking for information on spam?

    Check for significant differences in content with different user-agents yes, but banned words? That really doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

    --
    It's official. Most of you are morons.
  4. Wait and see. by eniac42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People, its just a blog. If someone has really hacked Google, we will hear soon enough. Otherwise scamming and spoofing the ratings with rubbish sites is a sport thats been going on a long, long time..

    --
    "A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." - Churchill
    1. Re:Wait and see. by tbannist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, it's worse than that. It's a blog that can't provide any actual evidence that anything they claim is true. As far as we know, the entire story is bogus because the blogger has provided nothing to prove that any of his claims are true.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
  5. Re:SEOs by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which raises the question: Why not have GoogleBot do a check also as a normal user-agent (IE/Firefox/etc.) and see if the page is significantly different than when it identifies itself? At the very least GoogleBot could check if there are common blacklist words ("viagra" et al) on the website when identifying itself as IE or Firefox.

    It does. It also detects landing pages mentioned above. Apparently it's something more subtle than what one could think of in few mins on Slashdot, and we'll learn soon enough.

  6. Re:SEOs by glindsey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What if someone is actually looking for information on Viagra, or replica Swiss watches, or cheap stocks? What if someone is looking for information on spam? That's a good point. But perhaps combinations of keywords would work -- it's pretty unlikely that you'd see "viagra" and "mortgage" on the same site, for example. If you partner this with checking for significant user-agent differences it could become a pretty good tool, I think.