Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

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Fighting malware, what's the solution?

A survey carried out by Virus Bulletin has just revealed that 85% of its website users believe that search engines should do more in the battle against malware.

But with the number of Google search results delivering malware-serving sites quadrupling in just nine months, Google's response has been mixed. Some sites get delisting but only if their optimization is "black hat". If the site has been identified as having malware a warning appears.

As an example - I'm sure Lyndon of Cornwall SEO won't mind because he is one of the good guys in SEO, a recent Search for his company resulted in Google putting a "This site may harm your Computer" label under the title.



On clicking further you get another warning.


The poll puts the emphasis onto the Search engines to remove malicious websites from their listings. However, there are issues where the site perhaps doesn't warrant the exclusion. Indeed I'm not sure how this case came about - I hope Lyndon can shed some light on it at a later time, but blocking sites in the index could be exploited by a competitor to deliberately infect a site with malware for the purpose of exclusion. This would obviously be catastrophic, as the website would vanish from search engine rankings.

In my opinion Google is handling this situation reasonably well, not removing the site but inviting the owners to get the problem resolved. The overall solution to the malware issue lies somewhere between user education, software security, server security and basic common sense.

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