In a move that has been long in coming Google has chosen to provide a safer environment for its patrons by blocking access to sites that appear to have malicious code.
The genius, in my opinion, is they are not blocking the sites from appearing but offering a warning under the title of a ‘harmful’ listing. The site may even appear number one and two as in the case of the search phrase “beautiful free screensaver” where the top 2 listings from the same site have the “this site may harm your computer” warning listed below the title.
So what happens if you click on the cautioned listing? Thankfully nothing, the page takes you to a site advisory page warning the website you were trying to reach may have harmed your computer. There is in fact no way to get to the website short of typing it in by hand or copying it into the address bar.
As far as I am concerned this is a brilliant move that will hopefully trigger similar implementations from the other major search engines. After all, search engines are there to provide us with a quality search experience, not to send us to websites that may have us tearing our hair out as the latest virus lays waste to our data.
- More information on Google’s malicious code / website warning label.
- What happens if your site is tagged malicious?