# Manipulated Google search results **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 22, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394 "2003-12-22T01:13:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Poloin99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Poloin99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poloin99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/1 "2003-12-22T01:13:43Z")
It seems like every time I do a search on google my results are altered by something. The results are not related to my search and if they are the link is trying to take to a web site that sells something. For example, if I do a search on Abercrombie it returns “find abercrombie at site ABC”. I check my startup and ran adware and neither worked. Does anyone know what’s up? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/2 "2003-12-22T01:28:55Z")
[Abercrombie](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Abercrombie&btnG=Google+Search) gives me this for the first 5 hits: ```auto Abercrombie - Buy Clothing & Accessories on eBay www.eBay.com ______ eBay Apparel - Shop by Category - Shop by Brand Sponsored Link Categories: ___ Shopping_>_Clothing_>_Casual__ Business_>_Major_Companies_>_Publicly_Traded__ Abercrombie and Fitch Description: Men, women, and children's clothing and accessories. Category: Shopping_>_Clothing_>_Casual www.abercrombie.com/ - 3k - Cached - Similar pages - Stock quotes: ANF Abercrombie&Fitch Abercrombie & Fitch is a fast growing clothing store with authentic quality gear for over 100 years. www.abercrombie.com/anf/lifestyles/html/homepage.html - 21k - Cached - Similar pages [More results from www.abercrombie.com] Abercrombie & Kent Luxury Travel ... Since 1962, Abercrombie & Kent has been at the cutting edge of travel innovation. ... With Abercrombie & Kent, the original luxury travel company. ... www.abercrombiekent.com/ - 13k - Cached - Similar pages Abercrombie & Fitch www2.abercrombie.com/ - 4k - Cached - Similar pages ``` The first link looks to be purchased by ebay; a normal practice at google. Are your results different? ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/3 "2003-12-22T02:06:08Z")
Try [Spybot](http://www.safer-networking.org/). ---
**Author:** ![Poloin99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Poloin99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poloin99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/4 "2003-12-22T06:28:08Z")
Nope, they look like this: Womans’ World, Easy Shopping Time! Womans World, a shoppers paradise with updates frequently. Get all your gifts in one place. Buy for yourself too. Come check us out. Abercrombie Products- Lowest Prices At DealTime! Save time & money every time you shop online: DealTime is a free comparison-shopping service that helps you find the Web’s best prices on links to everything from Computers & Electronics to Jewelry, Toys & more. Abercrombie Apparel and Accessories @ eBay Why pay department store prices for Abercrombie merchandise? Place your bid and save on hundreds of name brand items today! Men’s and women’s apparel, shoes, accessories and more! Save Time and Money on Abercrombie & Kent Tours Abercrombie & Kent tours are a terrific value, worry-free and hassle-free, and easy to budget. See complete itineraries and prices. Toys on Sale at [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) Order toys at [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) and Save. We have toys, computer games, baby toys, and toys for all ages! Toysrus is even at [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com), so if your looking for toys, we’ve got it! Toys R Us! ``` And I get a pop up every time I hit search... ``` I know something is up because it doesn’t do it on my computer. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/5 "2003-12-22T11:00:49Z")
Google sells ad space, but the ads are in little particolored boxes _above_ and _beside_ the actual search results. Google does not sell its actual results: Such sales would soon be known (hell, Google would have to advertise it to get any money), and they would send Google’s credibility down the crapper. Google makes money by selling its results (really, selling high-volume and special-purpose access to its engines), so anything that would damage the credibility of its results would lead to Google’s imminent demise. There are ways to affect the way Google ranks you (search for googlebombing), but Google alters its PageRank algorithm frequently to discourage such efforts. To be brief: Google sells a few things, but its actual search results are not among them. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/6 "2003-12-22T11:53:31Z")
You have a ‘helper’ add-on on your copy of Explorer. Have a look at its toolbar and menus. The add-on will be pretending to be, and will have been installed as, an improvment on IE, but it’s really just ad-ware. Cos people really do need “help” finding advertising on the web, don’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/7 "2003-12-22T13:45:59Z")
Are you running a search engine that _includes_ Google?? Go to [Google.com](http://Google.com) and search directly from that and see if there is a difference. ExpressFind, Dogpile, and the like are meta-search engines that do other stuff than if had you used Google only. ---
**Author:** ![buckgully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb9ed0/32.png) [@buckgully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buckgully)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/8 "2003-12-22T16:27:07Z")
I see the same thing as the from time to time. For example, doing a search for “hobby cnc mill” results in the first hit being for a search on what appears to be another search engine, which makes no sense when there are other pages that actually have “hobby cnc mill” all over their pages and I know lots of people (who are interested in hobby cnc milling, of course) link to those pages. That’s probably not the best example, though, it’s the only one I could remember off the top of my head. Other times I’ll see what appears to be my search on a page, but it winds up selling something totally unrelated to what I was looking for. Whatever I was searching for is almost always on the page, though. I’m usually running MacOs 10.3 and using Camino as my web browser, or I’m using Linux with using Galeon as my browser. I’m fairly certain that I do not have any spyware. I don’t even allow most cookies to go through. Though just to be sure I’ll monitor my net traffic while doing google searches. I think it’s just googlebombing. People have figured out how Google generates page ranking and take advantage of that. It’s just part of using the internet. If it gets too bad, Google will either adapt or people will start using another search engine. ---
**Author:** ![Poloin99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Poloin99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poloin99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/9 "2003-12-22T17:29:29Z")
In addition to the manipulated results, I have noticed that key words are underlined in green on web pages. When I put my cursor on them they are links. Whatever helper I have on this system, it is serious. I’ll look to see if there is a helper installed on IE. Thanks guys/gals… ---
**Author:** ![bobk2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@bobk2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobk2)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/10 "2003-12-22T20:01:34Z")
There are a couple more reasons why google results change. First, Google is not one computer or one website, but many. There are something like 10 different core google sites. At any point in time there is a possibility your search may go to a different site. The results are not always the same across all sites, particularly either when google is updating it’s rankings (the ‘google dance’, used to be once a month) or when google changes its ranking algorithm. In late November '03 Google switched to a new algorithm called ‘Florida’ and ‘all hell broke out’ to quote some folk. Top ranked sites completely dropped off for days at a time, then reappeared at wildly diffent rankings. For more info go to [www.webmasterworld.com](http://www.webmasterworld.com) or subscribe to the newsgroup alt.internet-searchengines. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/11 "2003-12-22T20:13:39Z")
Another word in favor of [Spybot Search & Destroy](http://www.safer-networking.org/). I’ve had to turn off the notification feature in Spybot because it seems as if _every_ webpage now floats ads which attempt to insert the Avenue A cookie. ---
**Author:** ![bobk2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@bobk2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobk2)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/12 "2003-12-22T20:15:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bobk2 \* > \*\* > For more info go to [www.webmasterworld.com](http://www.webmasterworld.com) or subscribe to the newsgroup alt.internet-searchengines. \*\* Oops…that’s alt.internetsearch-engines. ---
**Author:** ![SubliminaLiar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@SubliminaLiar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SubliminaLiar)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/13 "2003-12-22T21:56:39Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Poloin99_ > **…“In addition to the manipulated results, I have noticed that key words are underlined in green on web pages. When I put my cursor on them they are links”…** [‘Mystery Links’…](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/07/30/BU231339.DTL&type=tech) > [@](#): > > **…“If you see new sleazy links yellow highlights on your favourite web pages that weren’t there before, check for a program called Ezulamain.exe running in the background. > If you don’t want this beastie on your system (and I don’t see why you would), it can be removed by going to Start \> Settings \> Control Panel \> Add/Remove, selecting TOPtext (or whatever it’s called this week) from the list, and pressing Remove”…** Above quote from [this website;](http://www.cexx.org/toptext.htm) hopefully this will at least point you in the right direction. (My computer was invaded by these unwanted links last year~~ I feel your pain). ---
**Author:** ![Poloin99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Poloin99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poloin99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manipulated-google-search-results/220394/14 "2003-12-22T22:30:09Z")
Hey guys, thanks for your help. I used Search&Destroy. It worked the second time I used it. I’m not sure if it had an impact, however, the second time I used S&D I disabled Norton’s. Thanks again 🙂