Google made a Boo-Boo
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Written By Mohammad Usman | August 9, 2007 | Share This
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Oops! On Tuesday, Google accidentally marked it’s Custom Search Blog as spam, causing the site to be temporarily removed. And as a result of its removal the site was hijacked by an individual unaffiliated with Google.
The individual identifying himself as Srikanth posted comments such as “Google Custom Search, is the wonderful product from Google which many webmasters have been looking and dream for,” Srikanth wrote. “Also Google Custom Search is integrated with Ad-sense, which means make money while keeping users on your site for longer time with custom search engine…. Good Luck for all the Custom Search customers(??).” Initially, the comments were perceived to be the result of hacking; however, Google finally realized that it had marked its own blog as spam, which eventually disabled the URL causing the site to be available to the general public, thus allowing for Srikanth to post comments.
Google spokesman Sean Carlson commented “It was a case of “URL squatting” and not a security issue or any kind of hack.” Later Google also posted a response detailing the issue:
“Whoops! We accidentally classified ourselves as spam, and our ever-perceptive Blogger settings caught us. The Custom Search Blog has since been restored, and we’re taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen with other Google blogs in the future. Other Blogger users can make sure this doesn’t happen to them by reporting any problems to the Blogger support team via the Blogger Help Center at http://www.blogger.com/problem
.g. We can then investigate.”
Overall, though the mistake was realized quickly and Custom Search Blog is up and running again, there is, however, a lesson to be learned: Clearly, even the biggest internet giants can make silly mistakes.
Topics: Google, Search: News |