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Google Will Increase Warnings for Unsafe Websites

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unsafe sitesGoogle is making changes to their Safe Browsing filter so that more users will see warnings alerting users that a site has been compromised or is using unsafe practices that could cause harm to the user’s computer, such as malware, ad injectors, phishing and unwanted software downloads.

Last year, we announced our increased focus on unwanted software (UwS), and published our unwanted software policy. This work is the direct result of our users falling prey to UwS, and how badly it was affecting their browsing experience. Since then, Google Safe Browsing’s ability to detect deceptive software has steadily improved.

In the coming weeks, these detection improvements will become more noticeable in Chrome: users will see more warnings (like the one below) about unwanted software than ever before.

The ad injectors warning is great for site owners because injectors replace the advertising placed on a website by the owner, which results in a drop in ad revenue for those sites.  And these types of warnings often mean site owners quickly identify issues such as a site being hacked or a bad ad network being run on the site, things that can result in visitors not visiting again in the future due to the bad experience.

google unsafe warning

It isn’t clear exactly why these warnings, if Google has identified new types of things that will trigger the warning, if they are going to be more stringent on what triggers the warnings or if there has been a recent increase in things like phishing, ad injectors and malware.

Google does stress that the only time they will display the warning is for “malware, phishing, unwanted software, and similar harm” and not for any other reasons.

The changes will come into effect within the next few weeks, and it is cross-browser and cross-OS.

 

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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