Mitchelaneous
@sbcglobal.net
| Bizarre Mistyped Domain Issues - AT&T's Fault?
I have spent the last few hours troubleshooting a really odd problem. To kind of get my thoughts in order on what I have done and could do, I thought I would spell everything out here. The problem is that whenever I enter any domain name and put the extension twice (like mitchkeeler.com.com) it redirects me to a search.com search page for it instead of giving me the normal error message.
To give you a little more information ahead of time, my DSL provider is AT&T (or Yahoo! AT&T to be more specific).
Here is where I would be redirected for that:
»domainhelp.search.com/search?q=m···.com.com
I always use Firefox, so first thing I checked was the other browsers I have installed right now. Both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 7 gave me the same results.
So then I thought, well maybe I have some sort of odd malware or virus on my PC. So I tested another PC, running Windows XP and it gave the same problem. So I thought, maybe it could be a Windows problem or it had spread to that machine? So I turned on my laptop – which is running Kubuntu – and it gave me the same result.
Going out on a limb, I wanted to try something different – so I fired up my PlayStation Portable and tried to recreate the problem it it’s browser. It sent me to the same result.
So now, you would think – well, there is a problem with the router or the connection from AT&T, right? So I unplugged my PC from the router, hooked the DSL line up directly to my PC (taking the router out of the mix) and I still was given then stupid domainhelp.search.com page.
Now I decided to do a traceroute to the badly typed domain to see how it was redirecting. That traced back to cNet, which owns the search.com domain name.
That is where I am at now, and I am kinda out of options on where to look next. If you have any ideas, let me know! Would love to hear ‘em. |
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Mitchelaneous
@sbcglobal.net
| Here is my transcript of the chat I had with AT&T's live support:
Mickey: How can I help you?
Mitch: Hello, I noticed that when I mistype a domain name such as adding an extra .com at the end, I am now being redirect to domainhelp.search.com
Mitch: Instead of getting and error page
Mickey: That is normal.
Mitch: When did this redirection start?
Mickey: Well, when did you try to put an extra domain?
Mitch: Well, just noticed it today, for example if I type in google.com.com by mistake I am taken here: »domainhelp.search.com/search?q=g···.com.com
Mickey: Just do not put any weird domain if you do not want to be directed.
Mitch: But, just to confirm - this is a "service" provided by AT&T, correct?
Mickey: All ISP do that.
Mitch: Alright, thanks you for your time. |
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ATT User
@sbcglobal.net
| reply to Mitchelaneous
what you are seeing is DNS redirecting provided by ATT's DNS servers. And as the tech said most ISP's do as a way to make money by showing a ad page with suggestions for mistyped domains. Now if you switch your DNS to another provider you wont get that search page you would get a 404 error.
Hope this helps. |
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jonrf
@swbell.net
|  It's *not* AT&T's fault
This site "COM.COM" (hosted from Cnet owned by CBS Interactive?) is the one that is doing all this.
So, by typing "something.com.com" in any browser or on any system is translated on the COM.COM server side to "http://domainhelp.search.com/search?q=something&d=www.something.com.com".....
For anyone out there tired of this site. Just block accidental browsing to COM.COM by banning the site in their browser or operating system.
For Windows systems see:
»technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr···005.aspx |
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