When Google goes Wrong…

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When Google goes Wrong…

Filed in: Google — February 1st, 2009

Google flags every search results as malware at 6:30am to 7:25am at 31 Jan, 2009 PST.

this site may harm your computer
Google flags every search results as malware [image from TechCrunch]

I was watching TV and my elder brother told me that the Google search results are not accessible. I checked Google on my mobile. The Google for mobile was working fine but the classic Google was adding a text “This site may harm your computer” on every search result.

A quick check on my twitter account (@liewcf) showed that it was Google’s fault, which was fixed after couple minutes.
The official Google blog responded about the error, a human error.

Google flags search results with the message “This site may harm your computer” if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. Unfortunately, the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs.

As a result, every site was flagged as malware by Google.

The Google team reverted the backup after found the problem and it was disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25am.

Peace.

My two cents

Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Google is not an exception. The world’s largest and most popular search engines was not functioning! It was a big hit for Google.

Luckily, we still have the alternative search engines like Yahoo!.

Now, would you think twice before keeping everything on Google?

Tags: malware

syokbeb
I agree never depend only on google because if anything goes wrong in the future.You will suffer.

Chris
I see the message and I quickly close it. Thanks for sharing this information. A nice answer from Google...it's human error.

CLF
Ah i noticed Wikipedia entries on Google are marked as "harmful" last night, wonder why.... So that explains everything. :)

www.dpinterworld.com/blog
Yeah man, even Google itself was flagged as a Malware! Thats new. My ads earnings from other websites tanked to half when I checked this morning. Crappy isn't it when things happen this way. The last time they did that was Feb 2007. If they do that, it's just gonna benefit Yahoo and MSN even more.

Paul Tan
these malware errors also appeared when you view your own site's profile in google webmaster tools

Irene
Yea... I was greeted by this also last night when I was doing some searches. Almost gave me a heart attack and I dared not to click on any single search result -.-

Anyway, Happy niu year!

shun2u
not 6.30am to 7.25am actually, it's 10pm something to 11++pm yesterday (In Malaysia). I was so shocked yesterday, i thought my pc was affected by malware. Fortunately not. T__________T

Danny Archer
yes, it happened around 11pm when i was searching for Firefox addon.

Robin
Certainly a rare occurence from google. They don't make too many mistakes

Weilian
Besides Google, Avira also flags Acer GameZone as Malware too.

nilai3
Luckily I was lazy to solve my website error mentioned by google in the webmaster tools yesterday at 11.00pm 31/1/2009 . I thought some errors occured due to malware problem in ALL of my websites WITH different server. No jokes, All of my websites showed error of malware. I was thinking of reinstall ALL of the back up datas. Wow! Google also can make Mistake :)

Daniel Adnan
Wheww...luckily it is solved within hour. Not everything is perfect and we have to lived with that fact and be cautious all the time.

Marco
It was a saying, "Human meant to err."
I would say good job to Google as they manage to rectify the error within 15 minutes.

Go-Air
i noticed this too...but they fixed it preety fast

SzeHau
Ha that's funny.. It must be some mistakes made by the Google's programmer and luckily manage to rectify the error in a shot time.

julian
That is the problem with the dominant position of Google, rather like Microsoft with all its virus problems. Never put all your eggs in one basket... with 'cloud computing', net books, and all that, there will be more and more people depending on Google with their data online.

Jayce
This is interesting. Hmm... Where was I during that time? :P

Denwai
there is human behind Google :)

a.whose
Wow...new info..where did u find this thing out...very clever...

shawn
huh? I never realize that...until read this post...

CrusheD_LameR
Hmm...google's team always think inside the browser...~!

I haven't found such problem, so you are the one reported to google?seems like many people noticed that too...

fathersez
Sure looks like a lot of people got to catch Google's 15 minute error. I also got it and thought it was a virus infection on my laptop.

Anyway good of Google to own up. Too many companies and Authorities, especially in our country never admit their mistakes.

Jepun Techno
That's it Google. no body perfect :)

Haan Chiang
I wonder what will happen to the staffs who made this error.

Anyway I still think that Google is the best tool for searching, and traffic sources. In coming 10 years, Google is still the best. SE Optimization for Google is essential if you want to success on internet. My 2 cents

boring guy
Hm.. sometimes they do error ma..

emobile
I though only me facing this problem on that day but once I know it happen to anybody, its truly google problem.. luckily just for one day..

nuasia
Will it happen again in Valentine Day? haha :D

C905.org
I was a bit worried when I saw my cell phone site marked "This site may harm your computer".

It was only a minor glitch since G is still the best.