Okay this is very weird and even weirder to post to HN, but I don t know where else to share it (and I don t use most social media ) and I m really quite intrigued with what I ve found, and would like the help of the community to determine how what I found is even possible.I ll try to keep the description brief - as you ll be able to test this yourself and determine your own theories for the cause of this.So I m browsing YouTube and come across one of a zillion channels that looks clickbaity - Hook Global . (This is NOT a promotion for it. In fact, I m suspicious they re apart of what I ve discovered.) Out of curiosity, I do on a rare occasion go to a channel s page and read their Description. As expected, this one has the atypical droll self-promotion.I wanted to find out more about them, so a typical Google search I did. Down the rabbit-hole we go...I had to do query: ` Hook Global -site:youtube.com`being they re a YT channel. My first search result showed a Linkedin item, which I later learned is their company page on LI. Skipping that! - for now.Curiously, my second result was exactly this: https://www.hoover.org/research/michael-mcfaul-whether-us-helps-ukraine-comes-down-idiosyncrasies-mad-kingThe only reason I clicked this link is that in GSearch s (what is it called - result summary ?), part of the intext is - Go to channel Hook Global More on this in a moment.For me, clicking on that link redirects IMMEDIATELY to a Youtube vid, even though the url is what you see above. The redirect is not even a channel for the link s host-site; instead to another channel.(FYI I m using Firefox with DoH configured, on Windows, and uBlock (the Manifest v2 version) with a ton of filter subscriptions - one or two of which remove tracking parameters.)I thought this redirect must be a fluke, so I opened the link in a private window...Same redirect, to the same vid.Okay, you might be thinking So what? Well, I did more gsearch queries (too much to describe here - except one, the LI page confirms Hook Global webpage as hook.online which redirects to hooknews.com , site for Hook Media Network )but ultimately this query is what I really want to report: ` Go to channel Hook Global -site:youtube.com`And this is what s stunning: (nearly) every search result is a hard-redirect to a Youtube video.Not even to the Hook Global channel. Seems the videos are related to the search-result s Title, or to the site s owner. (I haven t done enough test to be conclusive.)Try it yourself, to really appreciate what I m describing. Here are some search results that came up on just Page 1:https://cew.georgetown.edu/about-cew/https://www.uticaschools.org/news/1822826/a-special-message-from-dr-spence-reflecting-on-black-history-month-2026https://www.hoover.org/research/trumps-latest-bomb-watch-stanford-professors-blunt-take-sumit-ganguly-exclusive-h1-bhttp://dartgo.org/250blackhawklivehttps://z.umn.edu/ug-livestream26https://www.jesuitnola.org/2026/02/27/dear-blue-jay-welcome-to-jesuit/https://on.nyc.gov/44wHbdOFinally, I did switch over to Chrome, which also has uBlock, and a different DoH server configured - same effect. (Curiously most of the results had /link/ in their URL path.)I also went to my phone and ran the query via Chrome (yes, I m bad, I need to disable/hide it and use Firefox Mobile. Sorry!), passing thru an on-device VPN - same effect.So... What? How? Why? Anyone else seeing the same effect? Is it some kind of SEO blackhat/darkweb at play?