Google To Warn Users On Websites

[John Jupp]

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5251742.stm

Will affiliates be blacklisted as affiliate links are Google's hate of the month?

The warning will pop up if users click on a link to a page known to host spyware or other malicious programs.

Now if it's only to identify malicious script then fair enough but I don't like the statement "Initially the warnings seen via the search site will be generic and simply alert people to the fact that a site has been flagged as dangerous. Eventually the warnings will become more detailed as Stop Badware researchers visit harmful sites and analyse how they try to subvert users' machines."

Will affiliate script be deemed "malicious"? Is this the end of the cookie?

[bazmanblue]

well i hope not. im sure they wont though as there will be alot of corporationswho make a good percentage of there profits from affiliates like us and im sure they would step in and do something. the government might even do something if they had any sense as something like that could turn the economy on its head. affiliate marketing is now big business and any sudden changes in the market can lead to catastrophic changes in the economy. for example fags and booze will never be banned for this one reason. fingers crossed google dont. they would be wise not to

[Nosmo_King]

Personally, I think something needed to be done.

My wife with her nice new laptop and limited computer knowledge, done a Google search for a harmless term. One site she visited from the results, greeted her with a big flashy banner 'Your computer has a virus' or similar message - click here to scan now. So fearing the worst - she did.

There must be thousands of other people who do the same thing.

There seems to be a growing lobby against 'malicious' websites, with the likes of NIS and Micro$oft already there. Because of the technology involved, some AF practises (like using banner rotators) will be affected.

It's been coming a while, you won't stop it - best learn how to adapt while you have the chance.

[cat]

I've found www.siteadvisor.com useful for novice users.

I'ts always nice to see a Green tick against your sites

[pricethat]

That would be the best thing that google ever did in my opinion though how much harder would it would be for them to identify affiliate sites to users one day as something like "this site is an affiliate site and not a merchant who sells things" etc.

Knowing where cash is king they would pick up a fair amount more traffic this way through their ppc results dont you think

Great while they do something genuinly good though

[CompareStore]

I know Google like to say they are impartial but surely if they feel people need to be warned about such sites wouldn't it be better just to exclude them from the results? I'm sure most people would prefer this, I know I would.
Maybe they will allow you to have this as an option in the same way as they have the "safe search" option at the moment.

The warning is also going to be in the form of a popup so you can assume they will modify their toolbar to allow this popup even if you have the popup blocker switched on but what about the other popup blockers out there?

There's no reason to warn people about affiliate links. There's nothing malicious about them and users would get very confused as most would not even know what an affiliate link is. Most sites carry some sort of offsite, paid links whether it be Yahoo, AdSense or whatever so it would be a pointless exercise.