Spam Sites Infesting Google Search Results

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?

Comments

Google index hacked?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Hacking of Google databases might explain why Google Translator used to translate the Russian name for "Ivan the Terrible" as "Abraham Lincoln".

SEOs

[Chilled_Fuser]

  Using one page of information for Google's spider and then using a redirect for a non-spider user. It's an SEO tactic.

Re:SEOs

[Tim C]

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.

Re:SEOs

[colourmyeyes]

Apparently it's something more subtle than what one could think of in few mins on Slashdot

Blasphemy! In my relatively short time lurking on Slashdot, I've seen nearly all the world's problems, including hideously complicated questions of physics, SOLVED in posts no more than a few paragraphs long.

It's amazing, really.

I Bet It's a Simpler Explanation

[eldavojohn]

Google is susceptible to an erosion of moral tenacity, just like any other corporation. This would be far more interesting but the sad fact is that it's probably the simplest explanation: spammers are merely more sophisticated. I mean, a while ago a few people teamed up to Google bomb Bush as a "miserable failure" and it worked. They exploited Google's page ranking system. It's pretty easy to exploit because they patented it so you merely need to read the patent. From there you get an idea of how to exploit it.

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.

specific phrases?

[rubberglove]

The story would be more interesting if it included an example hijacked search phrase.
I'd like to check it out myself.

Re:I call Bullshit!!!

[Billosaur]

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.

Wait and see.

[eniac42]

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..