Pornographic Hijacking: How to Remove Your Name from Google Search Porn Links

Pornographic websites have created many insidious practices to bring their sites to the top of Google search lists. When my son was in fifth grade and assigned to do a project on World War II, we found that even the most innocuous search terms brought up pornography. "Warsaw Uprising," "World War II Poland," "Warsaw." It didn't matter what we typed, up popped one porn site after another. In the three years since then, search engines have improved their ability to screen links for relevancy, and routine searches on Google turn up much less pornography than previously. Nevertheless, pornographic hijacking, or pornjacking, is still a problem.

I learned through the Google Alert system that my name and Associated Content (AC) articles had been pornjacked. I had signed up for Google Alerts in my name at the suggestion of another AC writer. The reason for signing up for these Google Alerts was to help me detect any plagiarism of my work on the internet. Other AC writers had found some of their articles copied on other sites without their permission. By signing up for Google Alerts, Google will alert you to information turning up in searches containing your name or whatever other alert term you choose. To sign up for a Google Alert, go to http://www.google.com/alerts and fill out the simple form.

Of course my married name is so unique, Carol Gilbert. This means I get alerts on Gilbert, Arizona, an activist nun named Carol Gilbert who keeps getting thrown in jail, a journalist in Ireland named Carol Gilbert and a woman who blogs daily about her husband named Gilbert, among others. "Carol Bengle Gilbert" still brings up many irrelevant terms. I began to wonder whether these alerts would ever prove useful.

The first hint that the Google Alerts were useful came when a travel agency and a manufacturer linked to my articles. These were proper links that enhanced my internet reputation, and I was pleased to discover them.

Then the pornjacking started. First I found my name in a pornography link next to words about cruelly killing rabbits. This was quite disturbing. Next I found my name next to a reference to a vacuum cleaner I reviewed- but this was no vacuum cleaner manufacturer, it was a porn site.

If you find your name in a link and are not sure whether or not it is porn, there are two obvious signs. First, if the words in the link appear to be rather random, it is probably porn. Second, if you click on the link, it will likely take you to an .exe file that has to be installed on your computer. Don't take another step. Close the porn file.

There are two remedial steps to take when you find your name or writing has been hijacked by a pornography site. The first is to contact the site owner and demand its removal if you can find information to identify and contact the site owners. Currently, site owners are supposed to register with the public database WHOIS. However, porn sites engaged in hijacking may violate of this requirement and may not be identifiable. I tried several versions of the name of the website listed in my Google Alerts unsuccessfully.

The second step is to contact Google. On the Google home page, click "About Google." This will take you to a page with several options. Under the "More Google" option, click "Contact Us." Next, click "Security Issues." From there, click "Google's security, network or applications." Alternately, you can go straight to the security page with this link: http://www.google.com/security.html. You will see a choice "If you wish to have information removed from Google search results, please click here." Once you click, it will allow you to indicate that you want material removed from Google search results. Make sure you have the pornographic link handy as you will be required to provide it. You will also have to provide the search request that brought up the pornographic link. If you are using a Google Alert, this will be the same as your alert search terms.

Depending on which removal option you choose, Google may request that you work with the site owner first to have the link removed. However, there is an option for bypassing this step if you are unable to work with the site owner and the link contains certain personal information including your social security number or government identification number, your credit card or bank account numbers, an image of your signature, or both "explicit content that violated Google's guidelines and contains [your] personal information."

If you don't have a Google alert system set up, an alternate way to find out if you have been pornjacked is to do an optimized search of your name or your article name. To optimize your search, place quotations around your search term. If the search results show links that appear to be nonsensical or contain words indicating pornographic content, most likely you have been pornjacked. Contact the site owner and/or Google to seek redress.