Internet Marketing - This site may harm your computer

Interesting new functionality from Google today, at least I haven’t come across it before.

What happens when you visit a website that is infected by malware? You get infected right! You have no idea that your computer is infected and happily go on surfing the web unaware that the last website you visited left a little present for you on your PC.

But what if you were blocked from visting an infected website in the first place? How convinient would that be? Well, while I was doing some research today on Google.ie for the keyword phrase, ‘internet marketing’ I saw the following;

‘This site may harm your computer’ The listing above was the number one listing, but obviosuly Google had found something it didn’t like, so being curious, I clicked on the website to see what the issue may be, but this is what Google shows me when I clicked on the website;

When I click on the ‘Safe Browsing Dignostic Page’ Google gives me a break down of why it is concerned about this site, it tells me;

Google clearly states that though the website contains malicious software that may infect your computer, the website owners may not be aware of this themselves.

So, what if your website is suffering from a similar issue? How do you know? Well, apart from searching daily on your website for any problems, Google tells you;

‘If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google’s Webmaster Help Center.’

Apart from the lack of visitors to your website this issue will cause, the impact to your brand may have a much more lasting impact.

Have you ever come across this with your website? How did you get it fixed?