We tend to trust well known companies such as Google and Yahoo, but sometimes these search giants serve up some alarming links in search results. There are many users who use search to find out information, but if a user types in “Security Tool Removal,” they are served up dangerous links that go to malicious websites. These websites can create even more of a security risk without the user even knowing.
All links in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) that are marked red indicate that these sites are dangerous. The red indicator is from the WOT (Web of Trust) Firefox and Internet Explorer add-on. The WOT add-on shows you which websites you can trust for safe surfing, shopping and searching on the web.
When searching “Security Tool Removal” look at how many dangerous websites are marked red. The chances of someone clicking on one of those dangerous links are pretty good.
There are a total of 6 links marked red and of those 6 links, 4 are in the “Sponsored links” section.
I encourage and recommend that you download the WOT add-on for Firefox and or Internet Explorer so that you know what links are marked dangerous preventing you from clicking on links that go to malicious websites.
I hope that Google and Yahoo will find a way to stop indexing these dangerous websites. It’s a major issue and it’s not an easy task, even for Google.
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Great advice in this post. I think people definitely let their guard down when it comes to clicking random links when Google/Yahoo/Bing is the one recommending the link.
I appreciate the positive feedback and comment.
Thanks for sharing now I’m understand that are marked red indicate is included in non trust site
I am now using WOT add-on for firefox as per Frank’s recommendation and it is great. As mentioned, it warns you of websites that cannot be trusted thus you’ll really feel safer surfing online.
Andrew,
It’s great when you have proactive protection against malicious websites.
I disagree somewhat.
First, WOT does not mean results are dangerous. They are simply not trusted by WOT community. It can be for various reasons, in security field the main reasons are affiliation with one or another anti-spyware product.
Lets analyze green results: I see Malwarebyte affiliate (bleepingcomputer), Enigma Software affiliate/owned site (xp-vista) Spyware Doctor manufacturer (pctools), and PCTools/MBAM affiliate/manual removal instructions (2-spyware).
Lets analyze red results :
Spyware Doctor affiliates, Enigma Software affiliates, and Enigma Software itself. Also Stopzilla.
Now… we can conclude, that sites offering the same set of programs are dangerous differently ? That can not be true. Simply, they have different levels of trust.
In fact google scans downloads, offered by all sites and diagnoses sites, infected with malware. They do that quite well, though not as fast as WOT community.
If a site is peddling rogue AV, they should be marked as dangerous. They are selling a product that provides exaggerated reports and tries to fool users in purchasing a license in order to remove the security threats. If a website is reputable and they’re selling these fake AV programs, than someone should notify them with documentation that provides facts.
None of the programs mentioned in top results (maybe except stopzilla, I havent used it in the past, though heard positive feadback from comments on one of my sites) is selling or promoting rogue, none are malicious.
Even spyhunter is no longer listed as rogue.
Stopzilla is definitely listed as dangerous on a number of security portals.
Nods, it is more or less questionable due to number of false positives. However that makes 1 (paid) result malicious. Even SH is trying to clean their name :)
Hmm.. Didn’t knew about it, haven’t searched anything related to this as i didn’t have any kind of problems with my Virus Removal software (AVG) But, thanks anyway for Being “Mr.Prewarned”.. lol
Words cannot describe the nonsense I’ve seen result from this. Fake antivirus removal software that is actually a virus has so many, many times hurt things that it’s really incredible. I’ve had clients totally ruin everything when they didn’t even have a virus – were just suspicious – and used some fake scanner.
Excellent post. It’s unfortunate the number of nasty things that can make it onto the first page or two of the SERPs. The Search engines should weigh this more heavily in their ranking criteria.
This is a good heads up. Norton also has a tool for performing similar types of checking to malicious sites.
Mike,
Google and others need to stop indexing these sites. I am hoping they come up with something soon to rid these parasites.
Hoping to see Google with new techniques about the bigger problems of virus….