Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Sometimes, an HTTP status 302 redirect or an HTML META refresh causes Google to replace the redirect's destination URL with the redirect URL. The word "hijack" is commonly used to describe this problem, but redirects and refreshes are often implemented for click counting, and in some cases lead to a webmaster "hijacking" his or her own URLs.
Normally in these cases, a search for cache:[destination URL] in Google shows "This is G o o g l e's cache of [redirect URL]" and oftentimes site:[destination domain] lists the redirect URL as one of the pages in the domain.
Also link:[redirect URL] will show links to the destination URL, but this can happen for reasons other than "hijacking".
Searching Google for the destination URL will show the title and description from the destination URL, but the title will normally link to the redirect URL.
There has been much discussion on the topic, as can be seen from the links below.
How to Remove Hijacker Page Using Google Removal Tool [webmasterworld.com]
Google's response to 302 Hijacking [webmasterworld.com]
302 Redirects continues to be an issue [webmasterworld.com]
Hijackers & 302 Redirects [webmasterworld.com]
Solutions to 302 Hijacking [webmasterworld.com]
302 Redirects to/from Alexa? [webmasterworld.com]
The Redirect Problem - What Have You Tried? [webmasterworld.com]
I've been hijacked, what to do now? [webmasterworld.com]
The meta refresh bug and the URL removal tool [webmasterworld.com]
Dealing with hijacked sites [webmasterworld.com]
Are these two "bugs" related? [webmasterworld.com]
site:www.example.com Brings Up Other Domains [webmasterworld.com]
Incorrect URLs and Mirror URLs [webmasterworld.com]
302's - Page Jacking Revisited [webmasterworld.com]
Dupe content checker - 302's - Page Jacking - Meta Refreshes [webmasterworld.com]
Can site with a meta refresh hurt our ranking? [webmasterworld.com]
Google's response to: Redirected URL [webmasterworld.com]
Is there a new filter? [webmasterworld.com]
What about those redirects, copies and mirrors? [webmasterworld.com]
PR 7 - 0 and Address Nightmare [webmasterworld.com]
Meta Refresh leads to ... Replacement of the target URL! [webmasterworld.com]
302 redirects showing ultimate domain [webmasterworld.com]
Strange result in allinurl [webmasterworld.com]
Domain name mixup [webmasterworld.com]
Using redirects [webmasterworld.com]
redesigns, redirects, & google -- oh my [webmasterworld.com]
Not sure but I think it is Page Jacking [webmasterworld.com]
Duplicate content - a google bug? [webmasterworld.com]
How to nuke your opposition on Google? [webmasterworld.com] (January 2002 - when Google's treatment of redirects and META refreshes were worse than they are now)
Hijacked website [webmasterworld.com]
Serious help needed: Is there a rewrite solution to 302 hijackings? [webmasterworld.com]
How do you stop meta refresh hijackers? [webmasterworld.com]
Page hijacking: Beta can't handle simple redirects [webmasterworld.com] (MSN)
302 Hijacking solution [webmasterworld.com] (Supporters' Forum)
Location: versus hijacking [webmasterworld.com] (Supporters' Forum)
A way to end PageJacking? [webmasterworld.com] (Supporters' Forum)
Just got google-jacked [webmasterworld.com] (Supporters' Forum)
Our company Lisiting is being redirected [webmasterworld.com]
This thread is for further discussion of problems due to Google's 'canonicalisation' of URLs, when faced with HTTP redirects and HTML META refreshes. Note that each new idea for Google or webmasters to solve or help with this problem should be posted once to the Google 302 Redirect Ideas [webmasterworld.com] thread.
<Extra links added from the excellent post by Claus [webmasterworld.com]. Extra link added thanks to crobb305.>
[edited by: ciml at 11:45 am (utc) on Mar. 28, 2005]
I too might have thought a little harder if I had known it was 6 months. Let's hope it is 90 days for us and not the 6 months.
302 redirects
Dup Content generated by Google
Coverups & mis-directs
Special treatment for certain WW members
Constantly changing (hidden) policies & (hidden) procedures
Piled higher and deeper customer support
All for fear of potential reprisals. Well, I guess I just shot my chances of getting re-included.
This site was always white hat, always clean. I suspect that a spam penalty kicked in because of advertising through GoClick and the fact the site made it into Dmoz in about 4 weeks after birth. (Lots of links quickly).
I have already submited to "canonicalpage" suggested by GG about two months ago. No help. According to the Google directory, my PR has been increasing, not decreasing. I don't get it. Do I send a reinclusion request? Do I just wait it out?
It's weird to see my RSS feeds picked up by other sites sitting at the top on my name search.
[edited by: BillyS at 1:29 pm (utc) on April 20, 2005]
Special treatment for certain WW members
&
All for fear of potential reprisals. Well, I guess I just shot my chances of getting re-included.
Exactly why I am pushing for the problem to be fixed for all rather than covered up or fixed with re-inclusion requests.
The Google engineers are tinkering/applying a fix, this all takes time, and we can only be patient.
Patience of course does not pay bills or wages.
I know the adage "never rely on free search engine traffic to build your business" is a good one and we must do everything in our power to use other forms of marketing, but the plain fact is that 80% of internet traffic is generated by free Google search results and if we are honest, many of us are reliant on Google to drive a good proportion of new visitors to our sites. When you are thrown a googly like the Allegra update, it is difficult to be fully prepared for the devastation that follows.
In my ideal world, if I managed Google search, I would recognise that the current Google SERPs are flawed. I would roll back to the pre Allegra index. Learn from the algo change that I had implemented and start again. Somehow, I don't thnk my pipe dream will come true.
<Do I send a reinclusion request? Do I just wait it out?>
GG has suggested to submit a reinclusion request, so what are you waiting for :-)
Note that for inurl: and allinurl: searches, results from other sites are perfectly valid. So if you own yoursite.com and do a search allinurl:www.yoursite.com, it's a completely valid result to get a url from www.someothersite.com/resources?url=www.yoursite.com, for example. That's how inurl: and allinurl: are supposed to work--they match all docs with the requested terms in the url, not just docs on www.yoursite.com. That doesn't imply any problem/hijacking/issue; just that someone else had your domain name in their url.
when i do an allinurl:mydomain.com i'm still getting another site (302 redirecting) that shows as theirdomain.com/links.php3?op=visit&lid=24
my domain is nowhere in the URL ...
is there an email i can send this to?
thanks
I for one took his advice.
I don't think this is due to a 302 problem.
I know what the problem is since I too had a mishap which lead to the same problem.
I fixed the mistake and traffic resumed less than 30 days later.
Vin
