Google finally adds hacking notifications to Webmaster Tools
For the last couple of years we have been badgering Google to start emailing webmasters to tell them that their site has been hacked and now the feature is finally live – no more having to use Google Alerts!
The system reports on hacking and abused user generated content as well as comment spam amongst other things. The only drawback is that you have to set up the email forwarding feature otherwise you won’t get a notification – why can’t Google just use your registered email address?
More from the Google announcement:
Starting this month, we will notify more webmasters of more potential issues we’ve detected on their websites, including:
- Spammy or abused user-generated content
- Abused forum pages or egregious amounts of comment spam
- Suspected hacking
These notifications are meant to alert webmasters of potential issues and provide next steps on how to get their sites fixed and back into Google’s search results. If it pertains to a hacking or abuse issue, the notification will point to example URLs exhibiting this type of behavior. These notifications will run in parallel with our existing malware notifications.
A notice of suspected hacking, for example, will look like this:
Good news all round.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 4 comments below, or add your own!
I noticed this today too, as well as malware warnings. I wonder how far it drills into the site though – for example some malware can attach itself to assets folders in certain CMS systems..
Well I didn’t get notified 2 weeks ago when I was hacked…just dropped for my keywords. I was suprised I didn’t get an email, my keywords in webmaster tools looked like a porn mag. Hope this helps webmasters more.
This is an interesting development in Googles features, and clearly something a lot of users have been waiting upon for some time. With the threats of website hacking becoming ever more prominent it will be a requirement from Google users to have their websites security monitored closer and have faster response times if an event were to happen.
The complexity of spam bots has increased massively over the last few years, so threats to comment boards on RSS sites have become an ever increasing issue. Anything that helps to tackle this, such as the new notifications tool, will be a big bonus for website owners.
I wonder what other features will be rolled out in the near future to tackle these issues. Security will be a key point as the web develops into web 2.0, with the numerous applications and features this brings.
It is a useful add to their features. All users were expecting this…Hopefully it will also bring along other improvements from Google.
3 trackbacks
March 2, 2010 at 7:08pm
March 10, 2010 at 11:05am
March 12, 2010 at 1:40pm