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Search Engine Optimization Poisoning Way Up In '10

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the someone-warn-snow-white dept.

alphadogg writes "Cybercrooks continue to abuse the Web, boosting their ability to produce what's called search engine optimization poisoning so that individuals making use of search engines such as Google's increasingly are ending up with choices that are dangerous malware-laden URL links. Some 22.4% of Google searches done since June produced malicious URLs, typically leading to fake antivirus sites or malware-laden downloads as part of the top 100 search results, according to the Websense 2010 Threat Report published Tuesday. That's in comparison to 13.7% of Google searches having that outcome in the latter half of 2009, says Patrik Runald, Websense senior manager of security research."

41 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Link to Actual Report and My Many Gripes by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can find the actual Websense Threat Report in ASP-driven HTML here. I mention ASP because the video doesn't seem to be functioning correctly in my non-IE browser.

    I thought I would find this in the NetworkWorld article. Boy was I mistaken. As I switch between the two pages of the article, I am presented with "Whitepaper" links to reports that then navigate me to a 'page1234' at accelacomm.com where it asks for all my personal information. In the middle of the article (with no indication this has nothing to do with the article) is a link to another NetworkWorld article titled 'Royal pain: British Royal Navy site hacked.' Shouldn't that go in the 'Related Content' section that is also in the article with links to how I can 'bail out my budget'? Oh look, they've hyperlinked phrases in the article that just direct me to another NetworkWorld article and at the end I get directed to their security section. Might they take a chance and link to the source of the information that they are considering an authority on SEO poisoning? So you know, I can judge for myself and further inspect the report? I mean, I'm not asking them to drive across town to get a quote from the mayor ... this is the smallest gesture of investigative reporting one could possibly do.

    Sorry to rant for so long but it amuses me how a news article about SEO poisoning is obviously taking some questionable routes to up their own stats -- maybe even manipulate Google page ranks? Oh but that's just good old wholesome Search Engine Optimization -- it's those pesky cybercrooks that phish for my home address, not the "esteemed" online news sources we should criticize that ask me to enter it into accelacomm.com when I'm trying to read the news (and I'm not accusing accelacomm of being a scam, just annoyed at the principle).

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Link to Actual Report and My Many Gripes by Shados · · Score: 4, Informative

      #1: its in asp.net, not asp (big difference)
      #2: asp.net doesn't have a dependency on IE. Its browser agnostic (and thus like any other environment used for web development, it works BETTER if you're not using IE)
      #3: the video is in Flash using a pretty standard Flash player that has nothing to do with asp.net.
      #4: it works just fine in non-IE browsers (I'm using Chrome)

      Just figured I'd clear that up.

    2. Re:Link to Actual Report and My Many Gripes by negRo_slim · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I thought I would find this in th NetworkWorld article.

      Networkworld sure does seem to get linked to a lot around here lately.

      That aside, the summary states 22.4% of Google Searches produced malware results. Okay so obviously 22% of searches aren't going to be for anti virus software and the like, so can we just call this one a stupidity tax and move on? I recently had to remove a virus from an acquaintance's machine (3ghz celeron w/ 248mb RAM) by the time I was done I wanted to put it back on for the gentleman assumed it must of been the government out to get him to stop him from speaking his mind on the internet.

      0_0

      Can't help but wonder if these people even need a connection to the internet. Now granted that's not to say infections can't happen to everyone, because they can and they do but I think we can all agree the vast majority of infections delivered by shady sites are borne by the vast vapid masses. I mean you don't turn on your car and get on the freeway with nary a clue how it works do you? Why on earth should you get on the information superhighway when you don't even what a processor or memory is? Can the knowledge really get any more fundamental than that, for at some degree shouldn't we be held accountable for our own actions or lack thereof? If ignorance of the law is no excuse I fail to see why we give such a large free pass when it comes to computing. For the consequences can be just as real when you find you just sent your life savings to a scammer in Nigera, or got your dumb ass key logged while going into your PayPal. Or whose to say a virus won't come along that dumps addresses? Oops your 19 year old daughter's college address was in your Outlook now someone has that... Oops she's murdered! ... Granted a stretch but my point is for far to long we've gone after the symptoms and never treated the cause.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    3. Re:Link to Actual Report and My Many Gripes by Dishevel · · Score: 2, Funny

      He is using Lynx.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  2. Oblig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    My search engine optimization goes to '11

  3. Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by drunkennewfiemidget · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At least in my case, I've found that google's search results have gotten progressively more useless over the last 2-3 years.

    I search for a linux issue I'm having, the only hits I get are ubuntu users in 2004.

    I search for applications for my wife's phone, it's almost 100% adware sites, and 0% useful download links.

    My google search usage is going down steadily. If I want to know about a company/famous person/whatever, it's en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.

    Info on movies, actors, etc? imdb.

    Looking for directions? Mapquest. Google maps has gotten me lost on countless occasions. (By doing such things as telling me to get off a highway by crossing the meridian, and exiting on the onramp for the opposite direction.)

    I don't know whether it's just me, google has thinned out the effort going into their searches in favour of their (many) other endeavours, or if they're just not evolving as fast as the assholes who want to try and monetize my searches for completely unrelated shit.

    1. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by olsmeister · · Score: 3, Funny

      By doing such things as telling me to get off a highway by crossing the meridian, and exiting on the onramp for the opposite direction.

      Are you sure that it's just poor directions? Have you done anything to piss off Google lately?

    2. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      google totally sold out and lost their mojo.

      I get link farm sites from the first page that SHOULD be weeded out. I search for tech things and get mostly 'buy this!' crap sites.

      google chooses to do this. they could do better (they did, once) but now they are no better than any random search engine. worse since their UI is less direct and more junk oriented. we have seen google do a lot of auto-things (animation, auto scrolling of text ads, auto complete, auto-think!) and none of it is really welcomed by the user community.

      its just what we all predicted. google would be a golden child for a few years but then it will fizzle out.

      its ONLY because of habit that many people still use google. but they are not any better than the rest, these days, and their search seems like a paid service for all the wrong 'content suppliers' (I use that term very loosely).

      I wish altavista was back. I miss the old days.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    3. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, I think I've seen the same thing. And either Google is very silent about their search engine updates besides the visuals, or they're doing very little to combat the problem. All I seem to hear is efforts to let you get the results faster (the latest ideas being "Instant Search" and "Instant Previews"), although I can't say I'm having trouble with Google being sluggish. The fake blogs or forum scrapers, on the other hand...

      I understand that it's hard to differentiate carefully crafted fake sites from real ones with algorithms, but come on -- there are well-known domains only using scraped stuff out there... Block the entire domains, Google. It's your private index and you decide who should be there. Or at least hide them, if you don't want to look like a censorship organization. Smaller-sized text with the message: "This link is temporarily hidden due to excessive search engine index manipulation in the time period XXX to YYY. It will be shown again on ZZZ. Click to view."

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    4. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The main thing saving Google's ass these days is that 90% of the time they can just throw up a Wikipedia result in the top-5, and usually that's good enough.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    5. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by FudRucker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      yup, now that Google has their namebrand recognition they dont give a damn anymore as if they left the office with their servers running on autopilot while they are all out vacationing while the revenue rolls in. typical of most companies = they start out with benevolent ideals and once the ball is rolling and the money starts pouring in then it all goes to heck while the owners go out and play rich guy.

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    6. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by curveclimber · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's not just you. I remember when I first started using google and how amazingly appropriate its results were if you knew the right search terms. Now days I'm surprised more that it does so poorly on what seems like straightforward searches.

      Why is this? SEO must be part. But I also know if anything I'm looking for is even slightly related to a product, forget it, you get pages and pages of shopping results. I too, have to result on my memory and knowledge of where to look for certain things more and more.

    7. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by melikamp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IMHO, the trash in the Google search is mostly due to spammers: the people who game the page-rank. I agree with eldavojohn: everyone is doing it these days, and the "news" sites are especially notorious. The line is very blurry. I know a dude who works for gather.com, and they are doing it by inserting "keywords" into their news articles. This is not the same as using a botnet to generate traffic, but the goal is the same.

      May be the future of search is Bayesian filtering? It is doable even right now: have a local program load 1000 or so Google hits and unleash on them your own personal filter. Everyone heard about spam/ham filtering, but the math and the algorithm extend naturally to any finite number of categories, so a user can create categories such as "spam", "science", "shopping", "blog", "porn", train the filter, and enjoy truly personalized search results. Google is obviously loosing to rank gamers, they are way too smart and too quick to adapt. But a personal Bayesian filter could take the raw index with 90% spam and select results relevant to YOU, while slashing the amount of spam by a couple of orders of magnitude.

      My Thunderbird filter works like a charm: in the last year I've had 1 (one) false positive and what feels like less than 5% of false negatives. I think it will work just great on Web pages.

      Um, I am resubmitting this, since it's not appearing. Sorry if it's a dupe.

    8. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by Dishevel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      we have seen google do a lot of auto-things (animation, auto scrolling of text ads, auto complete, auto-think!) and none of it is really welcomed by the user community.

      None of it is welcomed by you. Most of it can be turned off with a few clicks.

      Google actually dose things fairly well compared to most companies. I can choose simple and clean or bleeding edge cool stuff. Never once have I searched for something Microsoft related and got the first 3 links pointing me to Googles competing products.

      Google is not perfect and I would not trust them with my child but I trust them and like them more than Bing or Yahoo.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    9. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by jhigh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's probably a combination of the two. Google search results are definitely becoming more useless, and I think as more and more people become familiar with the Internet, their behavior patterns will evolve to reflect this. I think it's not just more specialized web sites like imdb cropping up, but user familiarity with the existence of these sites. As the Internet becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, web sites advertise on television, etc., it's only natural that average users are becoming more familiar with specific web site offerings and foregoing the extra step of typing a search into Google. The (potential) down side to this is what happens when a new, better web site crops up that may be infinitely better than the one that we're all familiar with. For example, once the world became accustomed to using Microsoft Office exclusively because that is what they were the most familiar with, it has become increasingly difficult (if not damn near impossible) for any other product to break into that space.

      Is it possible that we will see similar things happening with web sites, where inferior sites are getting all of the hits simply because they are what people became familiar with early on?

      --
      Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
    10. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use DuckDuckGo, which is built on top of Yahoo's stuff. It returns far fewer results than Google, and at the end it has a link to try using Google instead. I've clicked on this a few times and as far as I can tell the only difference is that Google pads the results with a few thousand irrelevant pages. I've never clicked on the link and found that Google actually provides a useful response. I think I'd actually prefer a search engine to tell me it couldn't find anything than to give me 100 pages that I start clicking through in the hope that maybe there's a relevant result buried somewhere in the middle.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    11. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by lwsimon · · Score: 2, Informative

      As someone who is getting into SEO and Internet Marketing, I can tell you that there was a major change in the last 2-3 weeks that has lots of big names in that industry reeling.

      Google makes major updates to their PageRank formula about quarterly, from what I can see.

      --
      Learn about Photography Basics.
    12. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by hedwards · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's one of my top complaints about Google. The link farms and the results which require you to scroll way down to the bottom of the page to find the information. Google's approach worked well in the past when speed was more of an issue, but now that the web has adjusted to Google's stupid algorithm it's getting progressively worse.

      The other annoyance with Google is that it can be a real pain searching for things if you don't know exactly what it is that you're looking for. And the seeming inability of Google to know the difference between freeware and free to download trials.

      I spent some time a while back using Bing and quite honestly, there isn't that much of a difference in terms of quality of results. And for some things, the Bing approach is just better. Such as the way that it handles image searches. (Not necessarily the quality of results but the presentation)

    13. Re:Malware/Spyware isn't the only problem... by labnet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I see lots of complaining but no alternatives being offered up: Anyone.. Ferris... Anyone...

      --
      46137
  4. Search engine rankings for legitimate sites by Compaqt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The annoying thing is when sites that have legitimate and interesting content are ranked nowhere near the spammers.

    Many legitimate and useful sites are far and few between. You have to bookmark them because it's doubtful you'll find them again with Google (page 20 or something).

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
    1. Re:Search engine rankings for legitimate sites by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This sounds like a very very familiar discussion. Specifically, we had this exact same problem about 10-15 years ago when search spammers had learned how to game results on Yahoo and AltaVista with stupid meta tags and repeating the same words over and over to increase their ranking.

      Google figured out a way to get around that problem, which produced a massively better search engine. It sounds like the search spammers are now figuring out how to game the Google results, so in another year or two we'll be right back in the big mess that Internet search used to be.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    2. Re:Search engine rankings for legitimate sites by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think PageRank is ultimately some of the problem, though I hear they've been de-emphasizing it (but it hasn't fixed my searches). When I search for band lyrics, I want the lovingly crafted fan site that's been accumulating information on that band for the past 10 years. When I search for reviews, I want that site too. I don't want mp3lyrics.com for lyrics or allmusic.com for reviews or whatever. But the problem is that each of the good fan sites is a separate entity (which is one reason they're good): one's at joydiv.org, another one's off some person's university webspace, another one's on free hosting somewhere, yet another one's at brainwashed.com or synthpunk.org or whatever. So they each rank lower than mp3lyrics.com or allmusic.com, which have mediocre info for every band on the planet tucked away under their single pagerank unit.

      Same with non-music stuff. You're never going to find the person with a great page on blueberry pies; instead you'll get a recipe from eHow.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    3. Re:Search engine rankings for legitimate sites by theskipper · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Speaking of ehow (Demand Media), here's a great article about how they're junking up the SERPs. It's not just small time link farms, it's industrial strength pollution backed by hundreds of millions of dollars.

      http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/

      Google is going to need to take a firm stand. And they most likely want to do it desperately now that there's some real competition. But it's a tough nut to crack and they certainly don't want to upset their applecart (i.e. ad revenues).

  5. Useless Search Content by ideonexus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm seeing the exact same thing. I find that Google is becoming more and more useless for academic research. I would once type in a subject and get tons of legitimate, informative sites written by people who cared about the subjectmatter (remember ThinkQuest? All those fantastic articles are still out there, they just aren't in Google's search results anymore), which I could use as a springboard into deeper research. Now I get Wikipedia as the first result and fifty pages of forums filled with people who have no idea what their talking about. There's still no algorithm for content quality.

    --
    i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
    1. Re:Useless Search Content by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm not sure if this is relevant - but perhaps you should be using google Scholar for your academic research. It's possible that they segregrated what information you're looking for into that section.

      But then again, maybe not - I don't know what kind of research you do (and I've never had a problem with springboarding with a Wikipedia article...)

    2. Re:Useless Search Content by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not necessarily. Google Scholar will only find peer-reviewed papers (not very competently, and omitting much of the information required to find where it was originally published), but I find reading researchers' blogs often turns up more interesting stuff. It often takes 1-2 years between doing the work and having a journal paper published (and another little while for Google Scholar to notice it), so a blog post from a decent researcher about his or her current work will tell you stuff now that won't appear in Google Scholar results for 2-3 years.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. Google Can Ban Sites, So... by BoRegardless · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you abuse Google by deliberately manipulating to get high page results and they knock you out, then why can't Google permanently knock out the same 22.4% of the search result sites that host malware? That would END most users being able to come into contact with the criminally minded in that form of scam.

    1. Re:Google Can Ban Sites, So... by Antony+T+Curtis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Probably because malware organisations have discovered an ancient and dark evil who would further their cause ... for a price.

      They're called: Lawyers.

      --
      No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
  7. in my experience, not as bad as Bing by ynohoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just yesterday I wanted to download VLC media player. Top link on Bing: repackaged with junk seach engine and crapware newsletters. Top link on Google: the home site which linked to the sourceforge download. Of course Microsoft could be doing that on purpose for Open Source software...

    --
    need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
    1. Re:in my experience, not as bad as Bing by dotwhynot · · Score: 2, Informative

      Just yesterday I wanted to download VLC media player. Top link on Bing: repackaged with junk seach engine and crapware newsletters. Top link on Google: the home site which linked to the sourceforge download. Of course Microsoft could be doing that on purpose for Open Source software...

      What country are you in? It's really only US that have Bing yet (rebranding old Live Search in all the other countries to Bing without actually having the product is an amazing decision btw..) and a search for VLC on Bing US gives me a very useful and relevant top result. With direct links to download even for Mac and Ubuntu versions:

      http://imgur.com/RGqtA.jpg

    2. Re:in my experience, not as bad as Bing by ynohoo · · Score: 2, Informative

      from Ireland it gave me http://www.vlc-download.com/, which is the crapware download.

      --
      need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
  8. What are they searching for? by sudnshok · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The article is not clear what search terms produced 22% malicious URLs. That seems like a high number to me. If you search for "photoshop crack" or "keygen" you're going to get WAY more malware than searching for "fuzzy bunnies".

    While I agree that more spam and malware sites have gotten into Google listings, I don't think the problem is quite as dire as the article makes it seem for the typical Google user.

    --
    People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
    1. Re:What are they searching for? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2, Interesting

      google thinks the ONLY valid reason for the web is to let us 'shop for things'. sorry but I do a lot of tech searches (looking for code fragments or schematics or HOWTOs) and more often than not, the first FEW pages are ads to sell me something.

      we need a front-end to google to keep google honest. there have been front-ends, too, but google found out and stopped it (usually).

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:What are they searching for? by whoop · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it's not 22% of search results, but 22% of searches made which contain a malicious URL somewhere in the top 100 search results. Like anyone goes all the way through to 100 results.

      Some 22.4% of Google searches done since June produced malicious URLs, typically leading to fake antivirus sites or malware-laden downloads as part of the top 100 search results

      Fear mongering. That is all.

  9. i got a virus from youtube the other day by alen · · Score: 2, Funny

    clicked a real ad on youtube for a Mario Bros game because my 3 year old was interested. installed it and then Symanted popped up a warning that it was a trojan

  10. That's funny by countertrolling · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've seen a couple of Slashdot journal writers who try to manipulate SEOs and page hits by getting to get you to click through their media merchandising blogs if you want to see the story they are journaling about. They should be marked as spam, because that is what they are.

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
  11. Hmm... really? by rickb928 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really?

    I rarely bother with results beyond the first 20 or so. IF I have to dig deeper, either I munged the search terms, or I'm digging for a specific item I couldn't build a specific search for. Either way, I'm wondering how what percentage of search returns in the first, say, 30, were malware.

    And I wonder about the definition of 'malware'. But let's trust that.

    How about a small effort, along the way, to clean up the fake links? If I search for a term that even tangentially matches a product, I get search results that invariably include Bizrate and other so-called shopping or pricing sites. And sure enough, Bizrate in particular has an actual product listing about 20% of the time for me. The rest of the time, it did the SEO thing to make it look like it had a listing, when all I get is a 'we don't have any right now, but how about these?' or 'come back later'. Argh. Abuse. Perhaps fraud. I hate them so much I ignore them even if they DO have the product.

    Google doesn't care, though. They get paid anyways.

    Feh.

    --
    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
  12. JS:DR by PPH · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Article requires JavaScript: Didn't read.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  13. Need to vote or rank results... by seanvaandering · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They really need to create a ranking system for logged in Google users so people can vote down spammy links. Could be based on the frequency of the reports. Anything in first ten results with more than 100 negative votes per hour, automatically get removed and placed into a holding queue for a Google employee to review. If it's discovered to be spam, automatically penalize the URL in all results and remove it. Hosting companies will never want to host spammers, because all their good customers will go running to the hills. Just a thought..

  14. Wiki for info by HalAtWork · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The reason you're going to Wikipedia for actual information is because the site is structured to eliminate anything that isn't factual information. You're just realizing that the web is a bunch of crappy cross-linked blogs and syndicated content behind ads/paywalls. Soon you'll be hitting podcasts for editorial content instead of the ad-laden multi-click regurgitated PR between top 10 lists that make up most sites.

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  15. Re:Google Instant by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder if Google Instant will soon compound this problem. Once you're apt to see a tidbit of a result and quickly click through, that would be quite the prime target for this type of attack.

    Google Suggest (the command-completion part of Google Instant) already had a major spam problem. Google Suggest isn't driven by page rankings; it's driven by Google Trends, which was updated every few minutes. So, generating a large number of search requests in a short period could push a request to the top entries on Google Trends. That would make it appear as a suggestion in Google Suggest, driving further traffic to that search. I've seen a small mattress store at the top of Google Trends. This approach to spamming could give a site a huge traffic spike for about 45 minutes or so.

    Google now seems to be updating Trends more slowly, to provide more averaging over time. This makes it harder to pull off that attack.