How an overlooked subdomain can hijack Branded search visibility

During the weekend, I was doing some OSINT activities and enjoying the occasional spam pop-ups 😁. Anyway, one of the pop-ups opened a window with next type of URL: www.google.com/search?&hl=id&gl=id&q=slot+playwin123+DOMAIN.com

Here’s the parameter breakdown:

• hl=id → Interface language: Indonesian.
• gl=id → Geolocation target: Indonesia.
• q=slot+playwin123+DOMAIN.com → Search query: slot playwin123 DOMAIN.com (filter the domain in the search).

This showed a Google search with one result linking to https://edge.DOMAIN.com/, whose subdomain is actually a landing page for some game.

On this page, we have two links — login and register — to another subdomain of a different domain: playwin123.exclusivevip.link

.link domains are often subject to WHOIS privacy, meaning key registration details like creation date are intentionally hidden. In general, domains used in spammy funnels or affiliate marketing — especially those redirecting to gaming or gambling sites — are often recently registered, frequently with a lifespan of just 1–2 years.

This one redirects to playwin123poin.com, and if you are not in Indonesia, you are blocked with:

Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access playwin123poin.com

But if you are in the country, you see the “magic” gaming site — which, on top of that, is noindex. 🤔

That means the SEO visibility is coming from edge.DOMAIN.com, not the gaming site itself.

This is a cloaked funnel strategy:

• Public entry point → a trusted or neutral-looking subdomain (edge.DOMAIN.com) gets indexed.
• Traffic redirection → pushes visitors to the real target site.
• Geo-gating → shows content only to the intended country to avoid scrutiny.
• Noindex on final site → reduces direct footprint in search engines, making takedowns harder.

It’s essentially SEO piggybacking on a legitimate domain, plus traffic filtering for compliance evasion.

The whole chain starts with a spam popup link, not an organic search you typed. That makes the strategy even clearer: they’re using popups to send users into a search query that points to edge.DOMAIN.com, which then funnels to the gaming site. It’s a way to bypass direct linking and possibly disguise referrers.

Likely reasons:

1. Referrer masking – If they send you through Google Search first, the final site sees “google.com” as the referrer, not the spam site.
2. Trust/credibility boost – Users may click more readily on a Google result than a random popup URL.
3. Evasion – Makes it harder for spam filters and ad blockers to directly flag the target domain.
4. Longevity – If the final site gets blocked, they can swap in a new redirect target while keeping the same indexed entry page.

NOW — about DOMAIN.com

It redirecting to ANOTHER-DOMAIN.com 😁

As edge.DOMAIN.com is still live and being used as a doorway to the gambling funnel.

I’d call this tactic “legit-domain doorway funneling” — using an active subdomain of a reputable brand as a public-facing doorway that feeds into a controlled redirect chain toward geo-targeted, noindex monetized content.

ANOTHER-DOMAIN is a global advertising agency, focused on radically improving the value and relevance of advertising for the benefit of brands and consumers.

At this point, I started to wonder if this is one of the strategies behind the company or something else…

The thing is that funnel could be part of a deliberate traffic monetization or affiliate strategy operated behind the scenes by the same corporate entity (or a contracted partner). Given the geo-targeting, noindex, and brand subdomain use, it would look less like “hacking” and more like officially sanctioned shadow marketing.

So, on one side, we have ANOTHER-DOMAIN, a global advertising agency, and on the other side, the subdomain edge.DOMAIN.com is used for redirecting to a gambling site — which is likely part of a deliberate strategy to leverage the authority of a reputable domain for traffic redirection. This approach can enhance click-through rates and potentially evade detection by search engines and ad blockers. While this tactic may be effective in the short term, such practices can lead to reputational risks and legal implications if discovered.

Two possibilities stay on the table:

1. Deliberate tactic — ANOTHER-DOMAIN (or someone with legitimate access) is running these subdomains as controlled funnels for targeted markets. That would be unusual but could explain the precision: geo-gating, noindex, trusted-domain entry points.
2. Third-party exploitation — Someone found unused or lightly monitored subdomains and is abusing them for traffic redirection. This happens when DNS entries linger or a CDN bucket is left public.

Both models are interesting — the first for its boldness, the second for the stealth. The real differentiator would be: are these redirects still live after reporting or blocking attempts? If they persist long-term, it would lean toward intentional.

My personal conclusion is third-party exploitation and it is based on the results of a great tool for checking DNS records — in this particular case https://dnsdumpster.com/ — I have seen that the edge subdomain is just one exception among many legitimate, correctly used, and properly secured subdomains serving the business.

BTW, I shared the current article with the company — hopefully, they will use it to fix the issue.

---