Some search industry watchers have called Google the “internet’s traffic cop,” and it’s a role Google seems to be growing more comfortable in, too. Late last week, for example, Google published an explanation of how it handles pages that are found to house malware, and how webmasters can clean up the problem and get back […]
Having written about search for years, it’s often easy for me to mistakenly assume that everyone gets it. Search is where the customers are. Surely every business owner, large or small, understands by now the importance of appearing before these customers in search. Surely. But as I’ve looked for local businesses to help with my […]
Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware from News.com reports Google’s Blogger accounts “for nearly 2 percent of all malware hosts.” Sophos, an antivirus vendor, published a report showing the state of malware injections and attacks throughout the web. Specifically, hackers can set up “malicious blogs” on the Blogger service, plus they can […]
A week ago Google announced the release of a safe browsing diagnostic tool. To use the tool, just append a URL to the end of https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=. For example, to test this site, you would enter https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=https://searchengineland.com/. Google will then return four sets of security information about that page.
Google Is A Malware Site (Says Yahoo) from TechCrunch reports a funny bug at Yahoo that accidentally made it look like Google’s home page had Malware on it, based on the Yahoo SearchScan feature that was recently launched. A search for Astalavista at Yahoo returned what appeared to be a Google.com result in the 10th […]
Yahoo Search has begun a partnership with McAfee, Inc. to provide SearchScan, which uses McAfee’s SiteAdvisor technology to flag URLs it deems "risky" in the search results. Results are flagged with the type of danger below the title. This new feature is primarily aimed at preventing spyware and other malicious software from being downloaded on […]
Linking is still de rigueur when optimizing for Google and all major engines. Linking strategies have run the gauntlet, from simple link exchange requests to buying links. For a good review of current best practices in linking tactics, I refer you to The Link Spiel by Debra Mastaler and “11 Experts on Link Development Speak […]
Web Browsing, Search, And Online Ads Grow More Risky, Google Says from InformationWeek reports on a recent Google Study named All Your iFRAMEs Point to Us that shows 1.3% of Google searches returned at least one malicious result. Niels Provos, a security engineer at Google, lead the study that took 10 months of data containing […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google Toolbar Dialog Spoofing Vulnerability by Aviv Raff discloses an exploit with Google’s Toolbar versions four and five. The exploit comes into play when a user adds a button to their Google toolbar. When added, a hacker can spoof the information displayed in the dialog box and influence that user to download malicious files on […]
Search Engine Journal reports that online security firm Aladdin Knowledge Systems identified a potential “flaw, which allows the search engines to deliver malicious pages that have already been removed from the web.” What that means as a practical matter is that hacked pages, which have already been taken down or otherwise cleaned up, may still […]
In the aftermath of the major malware attack that hit search results, the Google Online Security Blog announced the launch of a new form to report malware software showing up in Google results.
Search spam, using techniques that manipulate the search results, feels like it is getting more dangerous every day. Some search spammers go as far as hacking sites to inject link spam into unsuspecting web pages. And some go even further by polluting the search results with nasty malware. Yesterday we covered a story about a […]
Subverted search sites lead to massive malware attack in progress from ComputerWorld reports that Google, along with Yahoo, Live Search have been targeted in a massive attack that puts links leading to malware sites into top search results. Alex Eckelberry, Sunbelt Software’s CEO said “So far we’ve found 27 different domains, each with up to […]
The Inside AdWords blog has provided more detail into what makes for a low landing page quality score. Google also said they will now not pre-announce all quality score algorithm changes prior to implementation. In fact, Google details which types of sites can cause all your landing pages to be penalized. The new FAQ describes […]
Qihoo lawsuit win closes chapter in dispute with China Yahoo from Interfax reports Qihoo has won an unfair competition lawsuit against Yahoo China. Yahoo China has to pay Qihoo $9,210 and post an apology on their home page.
The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced a new feature to submit a request to Google to review pages that were labeled as being malware. Google Search Results Now May Display Malware Warnings from us provides background on how the warnings work. In addition, Google has been sending malware notifications via email to webmasters. The main […]
CA and Yahoo have teamed up to offer a co-branded version of the Yahoo Toolbar. This Yahoo Toolbar will be bundled in all CA Home/Home Office products. CA Anti-Spyware will continue to power Yahoo’s anti-spyware feature in the toolbar. From the press release:
The Google Webmaster Central service has gained a new “Message Center” area that will initially be use to notify site owners of official spam penalty problems and eventually used to communicate about other issues related to site inclusion at Google. You’ll find the message center when you log into Google Webmaster Central, from the Dashboard […]
Ever done a search at Google and get a message saying you need to type some characters to keep searching? Those characters are called a CAPTCHA, a method designed to help someone prove they aren’t an automated program hitting Google. Sometimes Google can mistake a human for programs like these, and the Google Security blog […]
The State of Search Engine Safety was released by Site Advisor today. In this report, we learned that search results are now safer then they were a year ago. 4% of the search results are link to risky sites, down from 5.0% reported last year. Sponsored results are 2.4 times more likely to have links […]
Googlified reports that Google has acquired GreenBorder Technologies, an online security company, on May 11, 2007. Ionut adds that GreenBorder protects against virus, spyware, and trojan threats by watching the Internet session from the rest of the PC and earlier Internet sessions. If GreenBorder protects an application, the application would be highlighted in green. It […]
Virus Writers Taint Google Ad Links from the Washington Post covers a report saying that consumers trying to reach some legitimate sites might be getting infected with malicious software when they click on ads at Google. The software tries to “steal passwords and other sensitive information from infected PCs,” the article says. Google has reportedly […]
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 […]
Google Operating Systems reports that Google has changed the way they handle warning searchers of sites that may contain malware on them. It notes that a search on beautiful free screensaver currently brings up a result from elitesavers.com that has a message from Google reading: “This site may harm your computer.” That message links directly […]
For some time now, Google has scanned web sites for potentially malicious software that can download and install itself on a web site visitor’s computer simply by viewing a page. If Google detects a potential threat, it displays a warning message when a user clicks a result link (you can see an example of this […]
Reuters reports Yahoo China has won a lawsuit brought against Qihoo search engine for unfair competition. The lawsuit first came to light back in September. The court found that “Qihoo’s 360safe software prompted users to de-install the Yahoo Toolbar by making users believe the toolbar was malware — software that users download unknowingly and is […]
A new survey from McAfee finds that AOL has the "safest" search results in terms of not listing sites that might be somehow be risky or unsafe for searchers. But most interesting to me was the fact paid results across the board were found far riskier than free, organic results. Let’s do the numbers, some […]