[throwaway744678]

I think there are two possibilities here: - the original website is targeted by attackers seeking to push it down the Google results list - the original website is a side effect victim of spammy/malware infested websites who copy contents from successful pages to be listed in Google results and attract visitors.

Does that second option make any sense?

[dazc]

Since there isn't an obvious monetary incentive to push the site down, I'm thinking the second option makes a lot more sense?

It's not uncommon for authoritative content to be plagiarized and one needs to be ever vigilant and be prepared to take direct action rather than relying upon the wisdom of google's algorithms (which seem to be almost wholly ineffective in terms of discriminating against such practices).

[epoch_100]

There may be a monetary incentive for a polygraph manufacturer to push the site down.

[jkoudys]

There are also hundreds of law enforcement agencies worldwide who rely on the myth of the "lie detector" in their interrogations.

[throwaway744678]

Not worldwide, no. In the US mainly and perhaps a few others, but that's about it.

[tbabb]

> Does that second option make any sense?

No, because the hacked sites only display the fraudulent content to web crawlers, and explicitly hide it from legitimate users.