The latest version of the Google Toolbar replaces the custom 404 “Page Not Found” on the website you’re at with a Google version, which has many webmasters concerned that this change may direct users away from the website they’re browsing. Conveniently, Google’s 404 page contains a Google search box, and if a user decides to use it, the visitor will be taken away from the site. Even more underhandedly, the search box on Google’s 404 page is pre-populated with data from the initial URL query on your website.
Does the premeditated act of attempting to draw users away from our websites for their own financial gain fall in line with the idea of “Do No Evil”? I think not.
The hijacking of 404 pages is also done by a majority of ISPs, who replace traditional 404 pages with their own customized search portals. Hijacking a browser, however, is not just limited to 404 pages. Famously, Canada’s Rogers Communication was even injecting their own ads on to the Google homepage (amongst others). Google took offense to that, claiming it defaced their site. But now they seem to be engaging in such behavior themselves, subscribing to the ideology of “Do what I say, not what I do.”
An obvious solution for end-users would be to remove the toolbar, but that doesn’t address the concerns of the website owners who have absolutely no control over what third-party applications their visitors utilize.
Hmmm… interesting spin to 404 hijacking.
Microsoft did this in the past with their toolbar, not sure if they still do or not.
Verisign used to do something similar with domain typos:
http://www.webadvantage.net/tip_archive.cfm?tip_id=285&&a=1
It seems that the 404-Hijacking is triggered by the file size of the error page. If it contains less than a certain amount of bytes, the Google version will show up (less than 512 byte).
Using a custom error page that displays some text and/or a sitemap should be bigger than that.
However, I do not like the idea that “alien” content could be displayed on my domain, even in error documents. If there is only a default error document of the server, this should be respected.
Instead of cleaning the spam from their index and create a really reliable ranking algorithm, Mighty G is worried about error pages…I must be really stupid but I am not understanding anything here
i cant say i would be happy if this was to happen on any of my sites,the hassle you have to go through not to mention cost of bringing in people to your site so that they may be redirected somewhere else is criminal
I am bit worried about these toolbars. Today I tried to install the Alexa toolbar and my anti-virus software flagged a warning that the toolbar contains adware.
This is major bull!
Not only the hijacking also google offers custom 404 widgets that take you off site and display your site relevant pages with google ads along side.
I swear google has confused search with ADs!
Sorry I feel a little irritated with this whole this cause google is in a great position to show great ethics.
Instead it seems business as usual.