In the last year I've learnt a huge amount but there's still a lot I don't understand. For example how come when you type in an address sometimes you end up at a different site. Recently when I was experimenting with videos I typed in the address of a site holding my video. It worked but when I clicked on the same site (link) on a scheduled auction I always ended up at some random music store?

Mistyping a URL will often lead you to a site that someone else has set up hoping that you mistype the original URL. It's almost always a deliberate act by spammers who have nefarious plans for the unwary browser.

An example of this phenomenon is http://www.google.com. As they are an extremely popular site, there are many who try to capitalize on misspellings and will attempt to redirect you to their own biased sites. Try typing in http://www.googgle.com, for example. Just don't use their search engine.

It would help to see the auction you're talking about. If it's your own auction then it's ok to link to it here even before it has ended.

The auction is one that hasn't started yet. It was a couple of weeks ago and to be honest I forget which video upload site I was using (I tried several). I had the URL stored in my favourites and it worked fine. When I used the same link on the auction however instead of going to that URL I immediately found myself at one particular music site. The URL in the address bar had completely changed from my link. I double checked everything but it continued until I got fed up with it, removed the link and settled with Google video. I don't think it is adware as in my experience that opens up a new window which you can simply close. It's not huge problem or anything but I just wondered what was going on. BTW I have never had trouble with links on scheduled auctions before.

Hmm, it does sound strange. Not the redirection itself, that's standard, try for example this link (You automatically get forwarded to speedcubing.com):
http://tinyurl.com/4c62c
But I don't see why they'd sometimes forward you somewhere else and sometimes not...

If there is an error in the link, or you mistype something, sometimes you can end up at a site which owns that URL. If that particular URL is not in use, they'll sometimes send you to another URL they own which *is* in use.

David J