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Jeruba's avatar

How does "tiger woods adultery sale" bring you a dictionary page?

Asked by Jeruba (56062points) December 19th, 2009

I just clicked away from a fluther page only to realize a second later that an ad on that page had been headlined “tiger woods adultery sale.” I thought “wtf?” and clicked Back, but it was no longer there. So I Googled on that expression: “tiger woods adultery sale”—thinking maybe some outfit really was capitalizing on that news story to promote a product (I was dying to know what product).

The Google search results looked like this.

What I want to know is this: how could someone (apparently) hijack sites like Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and bizrate.com, all very popular sites, with their keywords and their Johnson & Murphy shoe ad? Is that what I’m seeing here—hijacking? How is this specific type of finagle done?

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3 Answers

Kelly_Obrien's avatar

I googled it and got this: How does “tiger woods adultery sale” bring you a dictionary page?
I just clicked away from a fluther page only to realize a second later that an ad on that page had been headlined “tiger woods adultery sale.”
www.fluther.com/.../how-does-tiger-woods-adultery-sale-bring-you-a-dictionary-page/ – 1 hour ago_

And:

Twitter / Fluther
Jeruba asks: How does “tiger woods adultery sale” bring you a dictionary page? http://bit.ly/7crgaX.
_twitter.com/fluther/statuses/6853622322 – 1 hour ago__

augustlan's avatar

That is so strange. I wonder if it has to do with those outfits that claim to increase the google hits for websites. Perhaps they add keywords that relate to current events in the hopes of snagging some extra traffic. IIRC, DrClaw works for one of those marketing companies… maybe he’d know.

Jeruba's avatar

The shoe company might well be playing that game. But how are they getting it to take you to Dictionary.com with it and not to their own site? That’s what I want to know.

@Kelly_Obrien, that makes me shudder. I know the Google update is practically instantaneous, but it still creeps me out. And I don’t ever want anything I say to go onto Twitter! What I saw earlier, when I Googled, is beneath those, beginning with the Dictionary.com hit.

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