This morning I came back to the forums after a long absence and noticed the new search bar at the top, so I tried it. I got the following page from Google (titled "403 Forbidden"):


I then went to Google directly (in a different browser window) and entered the following search string:


and got exactly the same response.

When I do a Google search without specifying the forum site, it seems to work fine.

Odd. What does it mean?

...Since this topic seemed to fit more easily into the "Geek/Tech Things > Software Issues," I have taken the liberty of moving it.
...Sorry, MyNameHere, I do not have sufficient knowledge to answer your question directly. I do note that the search tool works fine for me. Have you given consideration to the possibility that, as the error message suggests, your computer may, indeed, have a virus or other malware? Have you scanned for any? If you need it and use Microsoft® Windows®, there are suggested tools in the SpamCop forum article Suggested Free Security Tools and Apps for Windows.

No problem moving it. I didn't know where to put it.


Well, I have no idea, either, but I assume that my computer would be equally offensive to Google no matter what kind of search I submitted. Because it only seems to have a problem when I use the site:forum.spamcop.net qualifier, I thought it was related to our fourm.

(I tried both plain Google searches and searches qualified with other sites, and they all worked.)

Oh, well. I'll see if the problem goes away. If not, I'll post again in a day or two.

Or if I turn out to be infected.

Well, I found this at the Google groups, so it's obviously a Google problem:

Google forum thread

...Good sleuthing! However, from the thread content, I'm not convinced it's a Google problem. My take is that Google thinks there is a possibility of a DOS (or similar) attack from your IP address or another IP address on your "network," so it is trying to limit your access to Google in an attempt to avoid an attack. By "network," I presume they mean other IP addresses controlled by the same provider you use (State of Kentucky?).

Well, I thought so, too, but why would a DOS-type attack from our IP range only trigger an alert for searches restricted to the Spamcop forum?

(On further reflection, I tried to check out other Spamcop-related domains, but now - miraculously - Google is accepting forum searches from here. Problem is gone...)

...They might have an algorithm that reacts to the target forum(s) or only interrupts searches on some random basis (like: if this IP address is in a certain range and if RANDOM() is between 0.2 and 0.7) or only searches that appear to be returning more than so-many hits.......Or it's based on a random number (see theoretical "if" statement, above, with RANDOM() function).