StupidScript - 8:31 pm on Mar 10, 2005 (gmt 0)

Indeed, idonen. Nice lay-speak.

I would add (as a complement, I hope):

Using the description provided by idonen, what is involved and how easy is it to "google jack"?

1) I own a domain that I want people to visit who would, under normal conditions go to my competitor's site when the click on my competitor's URL in a Google search result.

Q: Is that URL really going to fetch a page from my competitor's server? Not if I can get Google to think that I am my competitor ... so

2) I build a page on MY server that includes code that sends a 302 instruction to any spider that visits it. I don't want visitors to that page, just spiders. The 302 code says (in effect): "myCompetitorsDomain.com/index.html is now myDomain.com/index.html"

3) Googlebot visits and indexes MY page, as I have linked to it from a regularly spidered page.

4) Googlebot munches away, and indexes the information that myCompetitorsDomain.com/index.html has moved ... to my server/domain/page.

5) If my page can get a higher PageRank than my competitor's page (and there are lots of ways to temporarily gain a high PR through fake means ... who cares if it only lasts a couple of months? That's all I need for this trick.), then Google looks at my competitor's page as being less valuable than mine.

6) Google places a link to MY page higher in the results than my competitor's original page AND the URL and title and description in that link are EXACTLY the same as my competitor's link, EVEN THOUGH it now goes to MY server. Google just changed the internal pointer without modifying the URL/title/description, because they actually think I AM my competitor.

I have successfully fooled Google into thinking that MY page IS my competitor's page. Any hits on my competitor's search results for pages I have done this trick for now go to me, and my competitor's real pages drop further and further in the SERPS until they disappear. They are now out of business (at least for a few months).

As has been said: This is a Google programming policy issue.

PS: When someone clicks a link on your site, or requests one of your pages from a link on another site ... it's noted in the log. This is absolutely the best place to gather information about your site visitors. You really don't need to use 302s for this.