Updated: Did Text Link Ads suffer a proxy hijack

by Patrick Altoft on September 4, 2007

Update see the comments below, it seems a proxy was not the cause……..

When Text Link Ads first stopped ranking for their own name back in June some people assumed it was due to the Google crack down on paid links.

Looking at the search results today it seems that a proxy might have hijacked the site and taken over the TLA search results.

The proxy site is here and it has now been taken offline in the past few hours due to “complaints”.

TLA

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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Jeremy Luebke 04/09/2007 at 10:46 pm: The TLA issue predated any proxy issues. If I was TLA, I would be trying to get me a proxy to rank #1
2 Michael VanDeMar 04/09/2007 at 11:27 pm: Interesting. I mean, they definitely are hijacked there… but I don’t think that is why they tanked in the serps. Otherwise I’m sure the hijacking site would have shown up long before now… their rankings dropped quite a while ago.
3 Jeremy Steele 05/09/2007 at 12:28 am: Proxy sites are getting ridiculous, Google really needs to add “report proxy site” to the report abuse form.
4 Matt Cutts 05/09/2007 at 7:13 am: I know for a fact that a proxy was not the root cause of this.
5 Dan Thies 09/09/2007 at 4:08 am: Thanks, Matt… and the TLA affiliate link in this post makes me suspect the real reason for this particular piece of link bait was not to enlighten the issue.
6 bestoptimized 10/09/2007 at 8:05 pm: Dan Thies: Why would you make an accusation like that? What does the presence of an affiliate link have to do with it? The post would have been no different in terms of credibility, whether or not he included an affiliate link. Apparently you think that bloggers shouldn’t make any money.
7 Dan Thies 10/09/2007 at 8:47 pm: Sorry… there is no way to justify that.