Google labels whole internet as malware

On Saturday (January 31st) website owners and searchers from across the globe were surprised to find that Google had labelled all of its search results as malware.

This will almost certainly have had a knock-on effect on search engine optimisation, as every user who clicked on a link was directed to a "do you really want to go to this site" page.

Google apologised the same day and claimed it had been a human error and explained that the URL '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the malware file and expanded to all URLs.

Search Engine Roundtable's Rusty Brick noted that while the issue may only have lasted for 40 minutes, it left the internet world feeling "very vulnerable" to the mistake.

And Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan stated that both Google and individual websites will have lost revenue and seen a dip in traffic as a result of the error, although this could be viewed as good news for Google's competitors.

"There's a good strategy for them - hope Google shoots itself in the foot more often," he added.

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