backlinks for example.com just forwarding to example.com

Results are confusing, anyone know what it is?

[WebPixie]

Let me start by saying I do not believe this person/site is doing any black hat stuff. But this situation has me baffled and I would like to understand it.

Basicly, if I do a search link:www.example.com it comes back with a very long list of sites as expected. BUT a ton of these listed links when clicked on just automaticly forward you to www.example.com itself. Not all of them, but enough to make me say "huh?". They also seem to come in bunches like 10 in a row then a few real sites, then a few more forwarding sites. A ton of these are keyword related domains, such as great-keyword-keyword2.com. Now these sites such as great-keyword-keyword2.com do not show up in the SERPs at all, but they are registering as backlinks for www.example.com

Did www.example.com buy old sites/domains and forward them for traffic? Is it a mess up with G? www.example.com is a well known and respected site with #1 rankings for almost all their keywords across Y! & G. I find it hard to think they are doing anything shady.

Sorry for sounding dumb, but can anyone explain what this is? My first thought when I saw this was "someone on WW will know what this is!" -lol-

Thanks for the help.