Google site: operator jump was correct for me

[denisl]

Using the Google site: operator normally shows 1,000 odd urls indexed for my site but when it was showing 18,000 a couple of days ago I thought it was just a problem with Googles reporting.

Shall learn to trust their reporting however as this morning I realised that someone had highjacked a url redirect php script I use on certain links out of my site. The script was there simply because I wanted to count the clicks on the links.

So Google is listing thousands of urls which are my redirect script with a variable added linking to to what I assume are #*$! sites.

I have now removed my url redirect script and used Googles url removal tool to remove it from their index (just the basic file - I hope that removes all the indexed urls with different url variables)

I hope this does the trick! I can only wait to see what long term harm it causes me.

In the meantime, all those listings in Google are returning 404's. I have a script in my 404 page that sends me an email showing the page that is not found and the referer. I am currently getting about 10 emails per minute!

[tedster]

This is the challenge with WMT when we know that the data goes buggy from time to time. It's still a good idea to investigate the reports - often they are showing something real.

It sounds like you took an approach that will fix it.

[denisl]

To give an update - WMT is showing that the file has been removed within, 10hrs of my request, very pleasing, though it is still appearing in a google search.