You may have seen them. Someone has been fired from a company, and to ‘get them back’ they are telling all their clients about the black hat 302 redirects that are stealing your customers.
Dear UnhappyWebmasterTeam,

Were you aware that you are paying every time your “Insert Your Keywords Here” Google advertisement is clicked? That hurts! I know, my clients have shared this frustration when I talked to them about how to drive more quality prospects to their sites - without paying Google another penny.

The SEO in this email continued to create a free report for the company, out of the goodness of their heart. In the end, they offered to help in any way they could. This is not an uncommon scam. Fear is the most powerful motivator. The client feels that someone is looking out for them. When the company banks on the fact that the average webmaster will not be able to understand the report, or that they will not be able to do the work themselves.

The terrified webmaster has no option but to hire someone to save their business. The best bet is the SEO who was fired, and now conveniently works for a great team of SEO professionals who are honest and reliable. There is no difference between this scheme and the infamous Nigerian scam. However, there are ways to protect yourself.

Domain Name

The first step is to make sure all your domain names are at a secure company like godaddy.com. Check the account and make sure no one has gained access. One of the best ways to protect your passwords and usernames is to set browsers, firewalls, and XP/Visa so that passwords are not saved on the PC.

The next step is to check the WHOIS.net database. It is a free service that will let you know if someone has chosen a domain close to yours, or tampered with your information. The service is free, and simple to use. http://sitetiki.com. This will let you see information on your domain name, pages, and stats at different page rank sites.

Redirects

It is possible to redirect a website. There are services where a person can buy a redirect. It is complicated but it can be done. If this happens, call the domain registrar. Then email Google from inside your Google webmaster’s account. I worked with a client once who insisted that every time she clicked her link, anywhere, that she saw another website. She was in a panic. I was confused, until she sent me the initial email.

As soon as I opened it my virus scan warned me of a potential virus threat. This was no surprise. The woman downloaded one of many scripts that redirect the browser. I told the woman how to heal the virus, fix her browser, and her problem was solved.

How can you test this? Try to freeze the page, which could be hard if the redirect is set to “0″ and look at the source for a redirect meta tag.