As some people may have noticed this morning, all search engine links were labeled that they may be harmful. Twitter messages were being sent around confirming the problem. Matt Cutts promised that a Google comment on the problem would be forthcoming. Now an explanation has been posted.
Google flags malware web sites in cooperation with StopBadware.org, a non-profit organization. During an update today, a human error included “/” as a URL. This effectively flagged all web sites as malware in the search engine index.
The problem was caught and fixed but it took some time for the problem to be rolled back. Google is promising to put better checks in place to prevent this happening again.
“This site may harm your computer” on every search result?!?!
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