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Did BigMouthMedia 302 Hijack Themselves Out of Google?

A few bloggers have spotted the fact that BigMouthMedia is notably absent from the search results this week and are calling it a penalty.

It isn’t a penalty (and BMM hasn’t done anything to deserve one) but the issue is certainly interesting, especially when you look at the screenshot below which shows the domain “g-maps.com” when you search for info:bigmouthmedia.com

bigmouthmedia

My first thought was a 302 hijack by a third party but the g-maps.com domain is owned by BMM so it seems like a simple case of a server misconfiguration to me.

Worrying that Google is still vulnerable to this stuff.

BY Patrick Altoft AT 3:10pm ON Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3 and has worked in the SEO industry for over 10 years. With experience across some of the worlds largest brands as well as startup businesses Patrick is well known in the industry and speaks regularly at the major SEO conferences and events. Follow Patrick on Twitter or Google+

Comments

  • http://www.seoco.co.uk Dave Eaves

    The thing that has made me think it is a penalty is this, if you look at the PageRank of most of their main pages it is PR5, if you look at the SEO services page the PR is wiped out and if you look at the PPC services page the PR is wiped out. Those pages were not like that a week or so ago.

  • http://www.crearecommunications.co.uk Nick Rinylo

    Hi Dave Eaves, are you sure about that because the Creare Comm /search-engine-optimisation/ page hasn’t got PR either and never has. I am not too sure why google would remove this tho. Its exactly the same for just searching /services.html page.

    As for Big mouth if it was a 302 Hijack, i assume they will return to the listings.

  • Pingback: Did BigMouthMedia 302 Hijack Themselves Out of Google? | UK Web Designer

  • http://www.commercetuned.co.uk Paul Rudman

    I’m not convinced about the 302 theory, as there’s a few issues here:
    1) g-maps.com domain home page last cached 26th April, which I believe is before the rankings dropped away (but I can’t confirm as I’m not that obsessed)
    2) the redirect from g-maps.com is a 301, at least it is now, again can’t confirm it wasn’t a server misconfiguration a few days ago that they’ve now rectified

    With regards to what I’ve read on other posts I’m also not convinced by the “link request” argument either, although I do think it’s maybe a bit naive to push out link requests from your home domain. I think with the increasing use of Spamcop in response to link requests and an aggressive response to Spamcop involvement from hosting companies that Google wouldn’t see the need to directly intervene to stop a practice like this, especially from an agency like Bigmouth that are probably handling millions of pounds worth of accounts via PPC with them.

    If you search on ‘Bigmouth Media’ then you do get a single result back – http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/vacancies/, why show this single un-important page on the domain if the whole domain had been wiped from the cache? This suggests to me some form of penalty on the important pages for the important terms including the brand name.

    I guess time will tell on this.

  • Steve P

    Pagerank seems to have gone as well.?

  • http://www.seoco.co.uk Dave Eaves
  • http://www.fusednation.com ScottB

    The G-maps domain is an old Global Media domain – so in order to have screwed up the redirects, they would have had to changed it from 301 to 302 at some point in the past month (it’s back at 301 now).

    In this case, it is probably just a screw up and not an illicit attempt to spam (like their previous dissapearance from Google in 2006!). The lack of PR in some internal pages is just a knock on effect from the homepage being zapped.

    Still, a sloppy screw up to make given what’s riding on those rankings (a veritable treasure trove of leads), but the company is big enough to weather a minor storm like this I would suspect.

  • http://www.dolphinpromotions.co.uk James

    @ScottB I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be the person in BMM that made a screw up like that.

  • http://sharkseo.com Shark SEO

    The homepage is ranking properly again now. It looks to me like it was a 302 issue, with g-maps likely being 302′d to http://www.bigmouthmedia.com (and when we all went to see what had happened, they must have already 301′d it over). Just guessing, really.

    What’s interesting is to see how Google handled that 302. Live and Yahoo still listed http://www.bigmouthmedia.com, although that could be down to them possibly crawling the site slower.

  • http://www.buyviagrapillsonline.com/ Ed

    Google is still so vulnerable to 302 SERP hijacking. I still don’t understand why don’t they treat 302 redirects the exact same way they treat 301. Just always show the f’ing target URL and put an end to this issue once and forever. Google’s stupidity!

  • http://www.presslancer.com/ Durward Sobek

    Well! It is nice but much technical report.

  • http://www.homeremovalservices.com chimene

    I am pretty sure it was a server misconfiguration but it really costs them a lot.

  • http://www.wapr.com/professional/RamiFawaz rami fawaz

    yea, im sure it cost them alot of money

  • http://www.outletseller.com Outlet Seller

    Kinda looks like someone shot his own foot…ouch, so much for hiring qualified employees.

  • http://www.karla-spice-zone.info/ KS

    Maybe it was both. Maybe the server config problem led to a penalty? The pr issue suggests a penalty.

  • http://www.feel-live.com Kola

    Google is the best search mashine!

  • http://www.rocketfishltd.co.uk/ Lee Berry

    maybe to many links were added in the given period…

  • http://www.medyum.tc Medyumlar

    maybe to many links were added in the given period…

  • http://www.junowebdesign.com SEO

    This is something new. I hope you would share why he is penalized or sandboxed in Google.

  • http://www.generateuk.co.uk Digital Marketing

    Good story, I had not come across this one before… I know how easy it is from personal experience to misconfigure a server.

  • http://www.waystoquitsmoking.com.au/ Shawn

    Really appreciated the way you handle your words.

  • http://www.su-kai.com SuKai SEO

    The 302 hijack has been a “bug” in google for far too long, I can not believe they still can’t get a handle on it – whether its an accidental web master error – or a page hijack, far to easy IMO

  • http://www.genericambien.net/ Insomniac

    I think it was another google bug :) I saw a lot of such

  • http://www.oscreative.org/ Wordpress Web Design

    The 302 hijack has been a bug in google for far too long, I can not believe they still can’t get a handle on it

  • http://www.speaker-mounts.net/ best speaker mounts

    Its amazing how one little offset can cause your entire site to go away in google. People have to be so careful as to what they do with their websites.

  • http://www.viagral.com Ed

    Google is still so vulnerable to 302 SERP hijacking. I still don’t understand why don’t they treat 302 redirects the exact same way they treat 301. Just always show the f’ing target URL and put an end to this issue once and forever. Google’s stupidity!

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