Will spammers destroy the inurl: tool?

[jcmoon]

The recent crop of spam I'm noticing doesn't give the URL of a website, in any form, anymore. What I'm seeing these days is a Google search, using the inurl command as well as a few choice keywords.

We saw the link: and site: tools get messed with and lose much of their utility (now one must login to Webmaster Central to get the same utility, convenient for Google).

... is inurl: going to be next?

[tedster]

I haven't noticed this kind of spam (email spam I assume?) but I can imagine how it might work - especially in combination with the "I'm Feeling Lucky" parameter.

However, Google's public link: operator never gave us very good information, and as far as I can see the site: operator is still quite useful. I'm not sure that spammers really hurt these two.

[Chico_Loco]

I've received quite a few google links in spam emails over the past 2-3 days. I've seen a combination of using the "I'm Feeling Lucky" type query, along with the inurl: type query.

Essentially, the email spammers are attempting to garner clicks by linking to a well known site (Google in this case). It just so happens that the links/queries perform a redirect as opposed to giving regular Google results.

Using the URL query parameter &btnl=3689 appears to have some significance, as I've received it more than once. It appears as though this results in a redirect, versus normal results being displayed. "btnl" normally is assigned to the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. I have to guess that Google do a Boolean check as opposed to a value check on this parameter, thereby allowing this value to pass as a valid query!

[tedster]

A similar email spam and phishing trick in the past was using Google Redirector, which is intended for their own click-tracking. In 2006, Google short-circuited this by serving an interim page for those phishy links. We had a short discussion about this back in November, where I also touched on abuse of "I'm Feeling Lucky".

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