I’m going to assume this is a Google thing because I like blaming Google for everything that’s wrong with the web.

Lately when clicking of sites found on Google, I get sent to the wrong website.  I’ve noticed this in the past week or two.

Here’s how to repeat the problem I’m seeing.

1. I open a new browser session.  IE or Firefox.  Doesn’t matter.
2. I search for something in Google.
3. I click on the listing in the SERPs that is NOT an AdWords ad and I’m taken to a completely different site, not the site I clicked on.
4. I hit the back button and try it again and this time it goes to the right site.

If I close the browser and do it again, it won’t do it right away.  It does do to the wrong website several times a day, but it’s like there’s a timer on it.  Like it only does it if it’s more than x number of minutes since the last time it did it.

It’s like a new type of IRRITATING AS F*CK advertising method that’s been rolled out.  Has anyone else noticed this?  Is it Google or are my browser sessions being hi-jacked by some evil, unknown running-in-the-back-ground program?

UPDATE:  I did some more poking around, but this time I searched on “google redirect” and found out is was a damn trojan causing the redirects!  In fact, I had several of them.  McAfee didn’t find them. 

MajorGeeks.com said to run SUPERAntiSpyware.  I ran SuperAntiSpyware, the portable version and here’s what it found…

See those last four entries?  It was one of them.  After it removed them and I rebooted, I can now type in online forms and ESPECIALLY in WordPress, without the keyboard skipping letters.  That was like a thirsty man finding water because I live my entire day in WordPress.

I’m really upset about McAfee not finding it anything.  That sort of lowers my faith in it.

So, how did I get these little buggers?  I think it may have something to do with the fact that I disabled Vista’s User Account Control some months ago because of the EXCESSIVE alerts it throws every time I want to download or run something.  So I did it to myself.  I turned UAC back on and won’t be screwing around with that again.

In the meantime, do I owe Google an apology?  Mmmm, not at this time.  I still have plenty of other things to blame them for.

2nd UPDATE:  I ran MalwareBytes after that and it found a whole bunch more.  And after all this, now my keyboard skipping letters problem is gone, too!

3rd UPDATE Oct 13, 2010:  Thought I’d post this update.  PCMagazine has a new article about this Google Redirect.  Norton wasn’t catching it either.