Porn redirects

[Whyzman]

What, if anything, can be done about a Google search producing hits which contained redirects to porn sites? This just happened to me searching for Bible covers... Sheesh... :mad:

[sassie05]

Just to right of where you put in your search string, should be an option for Preferences, there you will find filters for your searches.

[Whyzman]

Thanks sassie. I checked and the default filter is for moderate, however, I suspect the reason they are getting around explicit images is that they are using a redirect. I pulled up my search again and there was nothing in the site's description other than my search parameters.

What I was wondering is if anyone has reported such findings to Google and how that might be accomplished?

[Budfred]

Click on About Google on their primary search page... Then on Contact Us and they will have a Security link to report this kind of thing...

[sassie05]

Oh!:o I see. Guess I should have read your post! :o

[Whyzman]

Actually sassie, thank you for the suggestion you provided. I didn't realize that it was possible in the initial searching to add restrictive filters... ;)

In the site descriptions from my initial search there was nothing I saw that warned me that the URLs were redirects. I suspect that these scumbags could bounce through consecutive redirects and avoid filtering even at Google's server level... :mad:

[Budfred]

It is likely that the sites you were actually trying to find were hacked and the owners don't even know it... If you notify Google, they will restrict the access with a warning on the search, but the notifying the site is more difficult...

[Whyzman]

Is it possible to pick up on the redirects beforehand? I suspect that these jerks are targeting with their keywords and descriptions...

Here's my search parameters and findings:

http://www.google.com/search?q=bible+covers+leather+tooled+mexico&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N

I did notify Google.

The search results appear a bit different than when I first searched in that the problem sites with the .cn have moved around a bit. PEASE BE AWARE the porn redirects are .cn!!!! In my initial search one of the sites appeared on the first search page result...now you need to go to the second page and beyond. They are interlaced at least as far back as the 6th page...I didn't bother to look for them beyond that.

Now that I am aware of the deceit, I notice that the site names displayed are questionable, in that they are more like an acrostic than an actual company name. I Googled just the home URLs on a couple of them and there the results are telling of the intent and content...

[Budfred]

Probably the research you are doing is about the only way to anticipate them and, of course, you are not likely to do that research until you have already been hit by them... I imagine the pornographers really like the idea of catching some bible study people with their garbage...

[Whyzman]

I imagine the pornographers really like the idea of catching some bible study people with their garbage...Yeah, I suspect that's their twisted plan... :rolleyes:

It wasn't just the redirect, the site locked me in so I couldn't close it, or stop it from downloading. I had to quickly hit the ZoneAlarm internet lock to shut it down. When I went into the temporary internet files to see how much garbage I'd been hit with...it was there aplenty...

I'm not seeing any ill-effects after running AdAware, AVG, and Spybot. I'll run a HJT later just in case... Anything else you can recommend??

[PrntRhd]

Update the Java RE, remove the old ones.
Use NoScript with Firefox to stop untrusted sites from executing scripts that load the redirects and more.
Use SpywareBlaster to stop known bad sites from loading crud.

[mjc]

Well, being a Chinese TLD site explains a lot... (.cn is the top level domain for China, land of spam, porn and malware central...)

And consider blocking ALL .cn sites....

In FF (with Adblock) you could do *.cn, in IE probably putting *.cn in the Untrusted Zone is about the best you can do...

[Whyzman]

I just tried *.cn in the restricted zone and it would not accept it saying something about entering an invalid wildcard sequence. Any ideas??

Yeah, I usually do my searching using AOL just due to convenience...I think Opera or FireFox might be a better bet...but who woulda thought?? :rolleyes:

I run Spywareblaster and update regularly.

[classicsoftware]

Look at this (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1803) extension or this (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4351) one.

This will probably do the trick.

[bassman]

Interesting. Before I finished reading all posts, I went to the link you posted, clicked on everything in the search returns, and got all legitimate sites (strictly research I swear :D ). I then read more of your post where you say the .cn links are the culprits. I got to the third page before I found one. I clicked on the first one and started getting scanned by some anti-spy/virus crap (spy shredder). I clicked on the next one and got the same thing. I went to the third one and got a Very simple error page. No explanation, no suggestions, just the word “Error” at the top of the page.
I suspect these pages are not actually hijacked redirects from legitimate pages, but rather traps using keywords to get placed on searches. These links go to the site shown in the description, just not to a site you were thinking it would.
By no means am I defending pornography, but it seems to me this is more of a scam trap then a porn trap. Scammers will use fear, curiosity, desire, anything they can to get your attention. Just saying we should put the blame where it belongs ;)
I think letting Google know so they can place a warning is about the best you can do.

[Whyzman]

Hey Bass!!

I suspect that Google has already responded to my complaint. I searched back through the first 30 pages using the same parameters as before and there were only a handful of the .cn, whereas, before they were well interlaced.

I did a Google search immediately after getting "exposed" to their junk using the website URL only...not with the /page within the site that they all appear to have.

I'll PM the URL to you so as not to host it here...

[Whyzman]

I suspect these pages are not actually hijacked redirects from legitimate pages, but rather traps using keywords to get placed on searches. These links go to the site shown in the description, just not to a site you were thinking it would.That is what I also think is happening. I was under the impression that Google's bots were sophisticated enough to compare the "key words" with actuals on the sites to see if they matched up.

After I hit the internet lock in ZoneAlarm, I was so angered and worried that I'd possibly been hit with a virus or trojan that I spent the time cleaning house and trying to make sure I didn't pick up some form of "STD" that I didn't attempt any further research until I'd already overwritten AOL's last 300 history...

[bassman]

I was under the impression that Google's bots were sophisticated enough to compare the "key words" with actuals on the sites to see if they matched up.
:confused: I may not understand what you are saying here..... Keywords are something that is defined in the html code by the code writer. I can input any keyword I want in my page design irregardless of actual content. That is where search engines look, not in the visible text of the page.
Have I misread what you were saying?


I didn't attempt any further research until I'd already overwritten AOL's last 300 history...
That's a simple one. Find the AOL Uninstall file and proceed :D

[Whyzman]

:confused: I may not understand what you are saying here..... Keywords are something that is defined in the html code by the code writer. I can input any keyword I want in my page design irregardless of actual content. That is where search engines look, not in the visible text of the page.
Have I misread what you were saying?Yes and no! :D I seem to remember reading though, since keywords can get your site into an area it doesn't belong (intentionally) that the newer software actually checked the site's content using some sort of proprietary algorithms. The intent, to make sure the "shoe fit" so to speak with the actual search...

[jlreich]

The spiders don't really pay much attention to the keywords in the meta tags anymore. Those keywords were so heavily abused they started looking at the actual content. I think they can still have some weight if done properly, but content is more important.

I haven't been into the website thing for awhile, but I am sure people have found ways to defeat and manipulate the system. Perhaps some kind of hidden content embedded into the page.

[bassman]

Perhaps some kind of hidden content embedded into the page.
Like using text the same color as a section of the background?
Well Whyzman, if it makes you feel any better, I just used your same search words on Google and went back a dozen pages. Not a single link to any .cn page ;) I was trying to find one of their pages just to see the source code.
Last time I read anything on search engines, few were still using a "Spider" based search. Technology had progressed passed their capabilities and code writers found more and more ways to "dupe" a spider. Hiding desired content phrases/words and limiting non-relevant content defeated their usability. Meta tags and other code defined search assistants are still used regularly but how they are used has changed a bit. Google for instance still uses keywords and content but they sort by relevance based on how many times links on other sites are used to access the pages produced in a search. Sharing links with friends and associates is a pretty important tool for a small web site these day. getting 100 hits a day from outside links is good. Getting 1000 a day would send you to the top.

[mjc]

Yep, I'm dredging up this thread...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/01/google_spam_infiltration/

[Whyzman]

Interesting read mjc... The interesting thing to me was that when I re-did the search using the same search words the page hit order came up different. As I mentioned, I searched through a number of pages looking for the .cn and they simply weren't as prolific as the first search.

Something is definitely afoot me thinks...