seoker.com — The new beta version of the Google Toolbar is using a new feature to hijack the 404 error pages of non-Google domains. Google bypasses the normal 404 error page of a website and displays its own 404 error page with a Google search box - effectively driving a visitor away from the website.
Feb 11, 2008 View in Crawl 4
gmfpanda2Feb 11, 2008
This is crazy! Google needs to back off.
techiefrankFeb 12, 2008
I doubt it is legal.
sajnikanthFeb 12, 2008
Wow..never thought about this from a webmaster's point of view. Apart from losing visitors, some creative 404s can be missed. <a class="user" href="http://www.sendcoffee.com/minorsage/404error.html">http://www.sendcoffee.com/minorsage/404error.html</a>
troydoogle7Feb 12, 2008
thats only if you clicked the option use gmail for mailto: links.... you should have just said no. Just go into the options and turn it off
Closed AccountFeb 12, 2008
JOIN THE GOOGLE NATION.
Closed AccountFeb 12, 2008
In Soviet Russia 404's Steal YOU!
mattcuttsFeb 12, 2008
(I'm a software engineer at Google.)I did a blog post to explain how this feature works: <a class="user" href="http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/404-pages-in-google-toolbar/">http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/404-pages-in-google- ...</a>The short answer is that only default 404 pages (< 512 bytes) will show this feature. If you want to show a custom 404 page, just makes sure that it's > 512 bytes and the feature won't trigger.Oh, and the 404 page also gives instructions right on the page in case any user wants to turn off the feature (click a wrench icon, uncheck a box, click save and it's off)
themuscleheadFeb 13, 2008
Never mind its the "Do No Evil" at its best!Do No Evil Just Monetize!Crawl the protected pages with Adword Bots, Manually Pick And Kick Websites, Change Quality Score Overnight And Make Advertisers Pay More, All In A Day's Work!Google should change their home page to GOOG :)