Oops! Easy to mix up domain suffixes (.com, etc) in a web address and get the wrong one. Precisely what US VP Dick Cheney did in a televised debate with his Democratic challenger, John Edwards.
BBC News reports that, when answering accusations by Mr Edwards, Mr Cheney told viewers to visit factcheck.com. But rather than being the address of a site to check the facts politicians use, the site merely hosts ads. What Mr Cheney meant was factcheck.org.
What happened next is darkly humourous.
More than 44 million people watched the televised debate, according to BBC News, and thousands turned to the web to find out for themselves. At the busiest times more than 100 people per second were visiting Factcheck.com.
As traffic to that site mushroomed, its owners decided to re-direct people to Georgesoros.com – the billionaire investor and political influencer who is very clearly anti-Bush (and who started an anti-Bush political blog last week).
“This was to relieve stress on the service and to express a political point of view,” said a spokesman for Factcheck.com. The site is still re-directing to the Soros site.