Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 5:10 PM
This post is for anyone who has been emailed or notified by Google about badware, received a badware warning when browsing their own site using Firefox, or has come across malware-labeled search results for their own site(s). As you know, these warnings are produced by our automated scanning systems, which we've put in place to ensure the quality of our results by protecting our users. Whatever the case, if you are dealing with badware, here are a few recommendations that can help you out.
1. If you have badware, it usually means that your web server, your website, or a database used by your website has been compromised. We have a nifty post on how to handle being hacked. Be very careful when inspecting for malware on your site so as to avoid exposing your computer to infection.
2. Once everything is clear and dandy, you can follow the steps in our post about malware reviews via Webmaster Tools. Please note the screen shot on the previous post is outdated, and the new malware review form is on the Overview page and looks like this:
- Other programs, such as Firefox, also use our badware data and may not recognize the change immediately due to their caching of the data. So even if the badware label in search is removed, it may take some time for that to be visible in such programs.
3. Lastly, if you believe that your rankings were somehow affected by the malware, such as compromised content that violated our Webmaster Guidelines [i.e. hacked pages with hidden pharmacy text links], you should fill out a reconsideration request. To clarify, reconsideration requests are usually used for when you notice issues stemming from violations of our Webmaster Guidelines and are separate from malware requests.
If you have additional questions, please review our documentation or post to the discussion group with the URL of your site. We hope you find this updated feature in Webmaster Tools useful in discovering and fixing any malware-related problems.
Written by Evan Tang, Search Quality Team
23 comments:
This is great information.
I once had a site that was hacked, and someone inserted a download that would have been considered "badware". I actually just deleted the site, as it was defunct anyway, but this information will come in quite handy for both myself and for clients I work for.
DESPERATELY need Google attention. I'm webmaster of a domain that was hacked. Cleaned all and Google Webmaster Tools review found it OK. Two days later another attack and got same block from Google, just this time no link to review appears on Google Webmaster Tools leaving me w/o options to ask for review!!! Any suggestions?
Hi Gabriel, I suggest you start a thread in the Webmaster Help groups at http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help/topics?start= & mention your site's URL there. The users there will generally be able to help you either find the remaining badware or give you advice as to how you could continue.
Who knws maybe this will reach someone.
I would like to suggest you add as an option a longitude & latitude grid to "maps."
We had this problem with a new website shortly after launch. The badware scan highlighted the pages concerned, and made it straight forward to remove the code causing the problem.
The verification request was straight forward and relatively fast.
Re-inforced my belief in Google, and yet another excellent feature.
How I can access this badware google database like firefox does? Is there any webservice for it?
Thanks.
thank you for your insight that is very helpful. I love using the webmaster program to help my website. thanks
jay
Restaurants Open on Christmas
We were notified that our site didn't meet the guidelines and would be removed from the index.
It turns out one of our includes had been hacked and code had been inserted. We immediately fixed the problem and submitted a reconsideration request but, according to the response email, it can take WEEKS to review the request!
We are a political blog and we are losing tons of traffic right now because google has removed all of our content from the index.
In a couple of weeks, the election will be over. We need to get this fixed now.
Is there any way to speed up this process?
Our site was hacked, and we got the malware notification from Google. We fixed the site, and have been hack-free for two weeks. I went into Google's Webmaster Tools, but I don't see the warning or the Request Review link in the Overview section.
Would Google already have reviewed the site and removed the warnings, or is there some place else that I need to go?
Following up on my previous comment... Google added our site back to the index.
Believe me, I am thankful for that.
However this experience had really opened my eyes to the power Google holds over so many people.
This process really needs to be more transparent.
We got hacked and removed the badware. I submitted for a review and it did come back finally saying it was clean, but we're still listed as possibly harmful 3 days later. How do I speed up the process of removing that tag from the search results? 3 days seems a little ridiculous.
I think your process still leaves room for improvement as most of the sites likely to be flagged are innocent. Surely it would make more sense to temporarily REMOVE suspicious websites and allow investigation of any possible issues behind closed doors? I can understand what you are trying to do, but you are causing damage to innocent businesses.
You flagged my site a week ago, yet two investigations by Google, one by stopbadware.org, one by my hosting company and two by myself all came to the same conclusion - my site is clean.
The messages on the diagnostic page and in web master tools also confirmed this, and worryingly - the diagnostic page shows NO INFORMATION and NO EVIDENCE to support the view there was ever anything wrong with my site.
The web master tools message stated nearly a week ago that the warnings were being removed, yet they are still in place today.
I have lost at least two clients over this false positive and rather than congratulating yourselves (Google are very good at that), maybe you should work harder to ensure innocent people are not ruined by your well intended but badly thought out processes.
P.s. It says a lot for Google when a comment on this very blog which is quite clearly spam (with links to god only knows what) is still in place five days after it was posted. I am sure anyone with even a nominal IQ could spot it. Boosts confidence in Google? Hell no.
Well I'm still waiting for Google to unlock my site - one week after they told me what I already knew - that it was clean.
The following has been on my webmaster dashboard for a week now:
"Status of the latest badware review for this site: A review for this site has finished. The site was found clean. The badware warnings from web search are being removed. Please note that it can take some time for this change to propagate."
Once again I have to ask, how long is some time?
The Google diagnostic pages gave me no information whatsoever - the issue counts were all zero! Google have ignored every attempt I have made to request information and support. I am now considering legal action.
Sorry Google, but your service sucks.
You can speed up the process if you have AdWords running and give a call to your AdWords rep. The problem was solved in less then 2 hours.
I am designing a software that will scan my site daily for badware.
Bob, Care to share your scanning secrets? Thanks, Mike
My site http://sarkari-naukri.blogspot.com has been flaged as Malware. Google shows that only one page is infacting but it has not notieid which one. I have more than 4000 paged in my site and how can I narrow donw to the infacted page. I am sure my site is clean as it runs on blogger site only.
I have requrested for review it again but two days have passed and nothing has happend. I am llosing visitors ans reputation. Google should have informed me so that I could have taken action.
Anyone whao has bloger site and had been effected by same Malware flag, Please help me to remove the badwares.
Regards,
Manisha
New Delhi India
http://sarkari-naukri.blogspot.com
So my site was hacked. I removed all the badware and requested a review. I even ran link scanner on my site and it says it's not finding any bad code (http://linkscanner.explabs.com/linkscanner/default.aspx).
But Google says my site is still an attacke site and won't rejects my reviews.
What else can I do at this point?
If google wants it users to feel safe while browsing maybe google can tell the exact file and location where the malware is loaded so that it becomes easy for us to clean it, it is extremely irritating and a huge loss of business and face because of google marking it harmful without having a way of helping in resolution apart from reviews which are a waste
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