Why do some Google AdSense hyperlinks use “s-p: go to”?

Question

In some Google ads I have found that the hyperlink hrefs look like this

href="s-p: Go to XYZ.com"

These work, but I cannot see the code that translates the s-p: bit into an actual url.

What 'veil of ignorance' am I peering behind, please? I would like to know how the conversion is done. What technology is in use here?

This is an AdSense issue - see the ads that come between the article and the comments on this page:

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/foreclosure-fraud-for-dummies-1-the-chains-and-the-stakes/

Answer 1

The most probable answer is that this is a Wordpress plugin for adwords that displays the adds in this particular way.

I had never seen it before so dont take my word just yet but I´m looking into it!

Answer 2

From the link given, the question is about links like this:

<a href="s-p: Go to XYZ.com"
   onclick="advert_cookie(); window.location='http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/[...]'; return false;">
XYZ.com
</a>

To answer the question, no conversion is done: the JavaScript onclick handler sets window.location to the given URL, so the (invalid) href attribute is simply ignored.

Answer 3

The link behaviour is generated by Javascript snippets provided by Google, and not the browser itself. Hence the text is explicitly set by the Google code, and they chose to show that text for some reason unknown to me.

I know of no browsers supporting the s-p protocol as-is. Custom browser plugins may provided that functionalty, but I haven't heard of any.