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February 4, 2009

Red faces at Guardian after Monkey url cock-up

By Dominic wireposts

Media Guardian’s Monkey gossip column yesterday suggested that Express web sub editors had been drinking too much coffee themselves when they gave the url suffix “utter-cock-as-usual” to a story which suggested that seven cups of coffee a day was enough to “make you hallucinate and sense dead people”.

But Monkey updated the story yesterday afternoon with a grudging correction pointing out that “the story may not have been written in Express Towers after all”.

Guardian Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre reveals on his blog that in fact he is behind the “utter-cock” url – and more besides, taking advantage of the fact that the Express website, like Telegraph.co.uk, allows you to make up your own urls for their web stories.

He gives the examples:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/4445669/
i-know-i-know-but-management-says-lol-omg-internet-links-will-boost-our-web-traffic.html

https://www.express.co.uk/horoscopes/forecast/Sagittarius/9/
toper-is-a-library-image-we-get-the-work-experience-to-write-this-drivel

And reveals that “you can build a lolz URL for any website you like using ? and +”

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With a final example:

www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2009/feb/03/
url-cock-up-express-story?+no+they+dont+you+nob

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