I make it a habit to use my mom’s eMachines computer a little bit each week. It’s not that I don’t have several of my own. I like to see what sorts of scum and spyware have made their way onto her machine in a week’s time (I remove what I find, of course). She’s your average computer/Internet user and will do just about anything she’s told to do by a website or piece of software.

While playing with her computer this weekend I came across something that I initially thought was spyware of some kind.

Any time you type in a domain without the “www” in front of it, you’re redirected to a Google-branded page literally overflowing with sponsored results. The page tells you that “whateverdomain.com” is not available and then offers some suggestions (wrapped in ads, of course). Even typing in “google.com” directs you to the search results page.

All I can say to that is… what the hell??!

Google.com is not only a perfectly acceptable way to enter a domain name, but it’s also accepted by every major web browser out there. To get the behavior I saw, either eMachines or Google would have to circumvent the web browser’s normal way of handling URLs without “www”.

I also noticed that if any aspect of a site returns a 404 error - even an ad - you’ll be jerked off the site you’re on and directed to one of these search pages. I was browsing YouTube on the computer and all was going well. One of the pages I went to suddenly redirected me to the Google-braned search page.

And the URL that it said couldn’t be found belonged to one advertisement on the YouTube page. The content itself was fine. But because that ad returned a 404 error, I was taken to an almost spammy search results page.

Not only does this configuration mess with the user’s Internet experience, but it also costs advertisers a fortune. How? It’s very simple.

Let’s say I own arbitrarysite.com. I’ve bought ads using AdWords that direct folks to my site for a variety of searches. Some eMachines user types in “arbitrarysite.com” and, instead of being taken to my site for free, they’re directed to a search results page. Sure enough… right on top of the sponsored listings is an ad for my site. The user clicks it and it suddenly costs me money (and makes eMachines/Google money) to get what would have been a free visit.

The whole thing reminded me of a similiar experience Dell users previously reported. Search Engine Land even snagged some screenshots showing just how many sponsored listings these search results pages have. The pages you’re redirected to on eMachines computers are very similar… you’re just directed to them MUCH more frequently.

I understand that in some cases a search results page might be of benefit to a user who’s not typing in valid URLs.

But “google.com”? Come on, eMachines and Google! That’s just ludicrous. And you just know both companies are probably making a killing from all the clicks those ads are getting.

I find it hard to believe that Google can continue to preach the “don’t be evil” mantra while allowing their partners to pull this kind of stunt. If they really cared about the user experience, they’d put an end to partnerships like this that completely irritate users for the purpose of making a quick buck or two.