Why am I suddenly seeing pop-up ads?

We do not allow pop-up ads of any kind to appear on our site. We find them annoying. So why do they occasionally appear when you search on Google? Here are a few possible explanations:

1. You may have encountered a squatter with an address similar. Occasionally, individuals will register domain names that are one letter off from a well-known URL in hopes of attracting those who make mistakes in their typing. Please be sure to enter www.google.com into your browser and the pop-ups may go away.

2. You may have encountered pop-up ads that are designed to be triggered by web searches performed. These tiny 'time bombs' can be planted in your browser by any number of software programs that promise to enhance the speed or performance of your web browser. A brief description of these programs can be found in this article: http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,48177,00.html.
   
   If you are experiencing pop-ups generated by one of these malicious programs, you may need to remove it from your computer. One program claiming to perform this service is available at http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10106-108-63806.html. We have no relationship with the individuals who created this software and cannot vouch for it ourselves.

3. Another possibility is that you visited a site that launched pop-up windows in the background. These ads are known in the advertising industry as 'pop-unders.' When you came to Google, the windows may have become visible. Again, we do not condone this practice and do not allow it on Google.

If you'd like more information on the advertising we do accept at Google, you'll find it by visiting this page: http://www.google.com/ads/. We wish you luck in your quest to quell pop-ups.

How do I narrow my search?

Sometimes a search is in the right neighborhood but is overcrowded with too many irrelevant results. To refine your search, try doing a new search in which you add more words to your query. This will return a set of results that more closely matches what you wanted to find. You can also exclude words by putting the '-' operator immediately in front of each word you don't want to show up in your results.