Reply #48: There's one explanation for the Microsoft problem

[EarlG]

And I'm not suggesting that this is the same problem you're
having, but this has happened to me a couple of times:

When people create hyperlinks in message board posts on DU,
they do it using the following code...

[link:www.yoururl.com|Hyperlink Text]

Note that the "http://" before the "www"
has to be dropped, because the message board software adds it
in automatically.  Now, sometimes people forget to leave out
the "http://" like so:

[link:http://www.yoururl.com|Hyperlink Text]

If this happens the software writes http:// into the link
twice, and to your browser the link will look like this:

http://http://www.yoururl.com

Here's the kicker - if you're using Firefox and you type
something it doesn't recognize as a valid web address into the
address bar it will try to perform a Google search on what you
entered, and send you automatically to the number one Google
result (like doing an "I'm Feeling Lucky" search).
  
You can test this out by simply typing the word
"idiots" into your Firefox address bar, hitting
enter, and seeing what comes up :)

However, in the case of the mistyped URL above, Firefox gets
confused and performs a search on the phrase
"http://" 

And the top result for "http://" on Google is - you
guessed it - www.microsoft.com

You can test this out by going to www.google.com, entering
http:// and hitting "I'm Feeling Lucky."

Anyway, like I said, that might not be the problem you're
having but it's happened to me on more than one occasion.