Unsafe Sites Were Warned
A loophole in Google’s safe browsing search policy is closing. The safe browsing policy already flags up sites that are bad. These are sites that violates its policies. Phishing and various other activities can halt the process of flagging unsafe sites. However, this is where we start to see the loophole in Google’s policy. So Google will put a warning on the website, this is when it has been flagged up for being an unsafe site. Then, once the warnings have been removed, they continue with the site and innocent searchers like you and I will be none the wiser.
How the Warning gets removed by Google?
A question that needs to be addressed here is, why would Google remove the warning on a website? Well, the warning will not be removed until the webmaster has taken action on the unsafe sites. That is to say, they need to make a few changes before Google can deem the website a safe site. Any security issues that their website might have needs to be fixed. Once their site has been cleaned up and fixed of any issues, Google will remove the warnings from their website.
After these warnings have been removed the site can run again. If they waited long enough their website could slip under Google’s radar and so continued its reign of dangerous activities. Google has wanted to crack down on this loophole for a while. With this in mind, Google have implemented a change to their policy.
As of November 9th 2016 Google will be flagging up these sites that revert harmful ways. They will be classified as “repeat offenders” and webmaster will not be able to appeal the warning for 30 days. This notification will not affect hacked websites, only sites that purposefully choose to post damaging content will be affected.
How Will this Affect Me as a User?
Google cannot stop you from clicking on a link, however, the warning should make users think twice from continuing to view the content. Those of you who use Google Chrome will get a whole page warning to dissuade users from entering unsafe sites. Google announced in September, that starting in January 2017, those who use its Chrome browser will receive the same warning while accessing non-HTTPS websites, encouraging websites to adopt HTTPS encryption.
If you have a website that needs to meet Google policies or if you want to be on the first page of Google, Monkfish can offer web design expertise and SEO management to keep your site safe, smart and accessible.