Google Safe Browsing “Repeat Offenders” will get a 30-day time-out

Google announced on their security blog that they have a new type of violation notice for webmasters named “Repeat Offenders” for safe browsing issues.

This notification is aimed at “websites that repeatedly switch between compliant and policy-violating behavior for the purpose of having a successful review and having warnings removed,” Google said.

Google will notify the webmaster of this manual action via Google Search Console, but the webmaster will not be able to request a reconsideration request for 30 days. This 30-day waiting period is to discourage these repeat offenders from repeating the same offense over and over again by forcing them to wait, with a manual action, for 30 full days.

Google Safe Browsing aims at helping protect Google users by showing warnings on dangerous sites or dangerous download files. “Safe Browsing also notifies webmasters when their websites are compromised by malicious actors and helps them diagnose and resolve the problem so that their visitors stay safer,” Google writes.

Sites that repeatedly switch between compliant and noncompliant behavior within a short window of time will be classified as Repeat Offenders.

When a site is established as a Repeat Offender, the webmaster will be notified via email to their registered Search Console email address. Once Safe Browsing has designated a site as a Repeat Offender, the webmaster will be unable to request additional reviews via the Search Console. Repeat Offender status persists for 30 days, after which the webmaster will be able to request a review.

The user who tries to access the site will also see the warning until the violation is removed, which will be for 30 days or more.