Google Suffering Functionality Loss after Virus Attack?

I've been getting some e-mails claiming that certain types of Google searches -- specifically inurl:, site:, and link: searches -- are returning errors.

I find simple keyword searches work fine, but when I try the syntax above I get errors. A story at CNET has more details.

I've tried some alternate access methods, including the A9 version of Google and Earthlink's Google search, and gotten the same error.

I also tried a couple of API applications: Wumwum and the Google API proximity search. GAPS reported "Exception from service object: Internal error while performing search."

I tried running an inurl: search in Google News, and when that functioned I tried to pass that search to the Web search. While that worked for one query ( inurl:bbc.co.uk ) it didn't work for my benchmark query ( inurl:emailuniverse.com ) Further testing showed that inurl:bbc.co.uk worked regardless. (Because it's not a .com address?)

Even more testing shows that there's finally a reason to use that horrible allinurl: syntax. While Google flunks allinurl:emailuniverse.com, it passes allinurl:emailuniverse com, so perhaps Google is searching for the foo.bar string? Furthermore, you can search for a site by breaking it up over two queries: inurl:emailuniverse site:com .

SO, TO SUM UP:

searching for a site right now:

inurl:domainname site:TLD
(example: inurl:researchbuzz site:org)

searching for a domain in an URL right now:

allinurl:domainname WITH NO PERIODS
(example: allinurl:researchbuzz org)

I've got a note into Google about this and will drop a note when I have more info.

UPDATE: Everything appears to be functioning again.

Posted to Search Engines-Google | TrackBack