This is something I have noticed over the last few months, yet sort of passed over without giving it much thought. Recently I have stumbled across this as a link included within the search results for multiple popular search queries in the top 10 results within Google.

Here is Googles description:

We want our users to feel safe when they search the web, and we’re continuously working to identify dangerous sites and increase protection for our users. This warning message appears with search results we’ve identified as sites that may install malicious software on your computer:

If you click the title of the result, you’ll be shown the following warning rather than being taken immediately to the webpage in question:

You can choose to continue to the site at your own risk. However, please be aware that malicious software is often installed without your knowledge or permission when you visit these sites, and can include programs that delete data on your computer, steal personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers, or alter your search results. For more information on these types of sites, please visit StopBadware.org

If one of these sites downloads malicious software onto your computer, please read our additional information about reporting these sites and removing the software from your system.

This info can be found here

My question is why on earth would Google even include these websites in their search results? I understand Google is very concerned with the quality of their search results, yet they include these sites in the top results for various search queries?

This leaves me very perplexed, cloaking and link buying is bad, and can cause your website to be given a serious penalty or removed completely from it’s search index, as this is seen as a bad user experience for a Google search user. Yet purposefully attempting to  harm a searchers computer, stealing passwords, credit cards and personal information, this does not cause you to get a penalty, instead Google will give the site owner a warning in the form of a notification next to their website and time to correct the problem.

One would think, upon discovery of this type of software, Google would place such sites in the Google sandbox until the problem is fixed, and a reconsideration request is filed.

Tags: google penalty, google reconsideration, This site may harm your computer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Google. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.