Google warns companies about gaming mobile search

Have you ever clicked on a mobile search link only to find your self redirected to content that has nothing to do with the search result?

Apparently it happens a lot, because Google took the trouble to warn companies and other site owners to avoid the misleading search links or face direct preventative actions. Here’s how Google put it in its blog today:

“Make sure your mobile users are not sneakily redirected to unrelated content when they click on your site in search results. It can sometimes be a violation of our Google Webmaster Guidelines and something we take manual action on.”

What does “manual action” mean?

“To ensure quality search results for our users, the Google Search Quality team can take action on such sites, including removal of URLs from our index,” Google said in the blog.

For many businesses, such a de-listing could be effectively the same as not existing at all.

Actually, these sneaky redirects can happen without the company webmaster knowing about it. Shady advertisers might hijack a legit search link by installing a redirect code that leads to an ad. Sometimes the bad redirects come from a website that’s been hacked.

Google advises site owners to search for their site in Google on a smartphone and make sure the search link goes to the promised content. It also advises companies to look for signs in their analytics tools that users are being bounced God-knows-where from the links in the search results.