Google Steps Up Web Page Malware Notifications

The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced that they are now stepping up malware notifications to webmasters. They are giving more detailed reports on the malware issues with a specific site and they are also sending email notifications to webmasters about these malware warnings.

In the past, Google just posted a message in the Webmaster Central console telling you that you had malware and how to remove the message. But it did not give you detailed information on where the malware was discovered. Now Google will show you example URLs that they have determined to be dangerous. This enables webmasters to quickly locate the problem areas and remedy them before requesting the removal of the malware warning.

In addition, Google will also send email notifications to webmasters about the malware warnings. This is designed to help those who haven’t registered a site within Google Webmaster Central, or for those that fail to log-in regularly, where they might spot a warning.

Google will email webmaster@, admin@, etc at the domain flagged as having malware in hopes of reaching someone who can remedy the issue. Google also plans on adding a preferred email address for notifications through webmaster tools in Webmaster Central.

For some of our past articles on Google’s malware warnings, see:

• Google Search Results Now May Display Malware Warnings
• Matt Cutts On Appealing Google Malware Warnings
• January 2007 Update On Google Indexing & Ranking Issues

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.