At SEW, rumbinder is asking what can be done about an SEC investigation page that pops up whenever folks search for his company. The first piece of advice comes from seomike, who shows rumbinder the 302-hijacking trick and recommends its use to “take down” the SEC page.
Simple solution.
1. On your core business site build a page that just trumps you up. A total company booster page.
2. Buy a 3rd party domain
3. On the index page of that domain you’ll need to use some programming to detect useragent. If the user agent is Googlebot then use a 302 redirect to the URL that is “the dirt” if it is any other user then redirect them to your page on your core site that boosts your companies accomplishments etc.Now you’ll have to point a link to your 3rd party site’s home page. DO NOT USE THE CORE BUSINESS SITE when linking to the 3rd party domain. I would suggest droping a link in a blog or if you can get it listed in a directory. The link is critical because this will put the spiders into the 302 redirect.
What will happen. This exploits the 302 hijacking flaw in Google. Your 3rd party site will inherit the rankings of “the dirt” page. But when users click on it they will trigger the programming and will be redirected to your home sites company booster page.
Mike’s even got the PHP code to make the 302 happen – very kind of him. Marketing Guy recommends using press releases about the company and Danny Sullivan (himself) chimes in that seomike’s advice is probably ill-advised. I think Mike’s doing it more to take a stab at the engines than to actually promote the hijacking tactic (still funny, though).
