Google announced last week that it would improve security alerts for hacked websites to cover cases where websites have been infected with SEO spam.
In February 2015, Google integrated the Safe Browsing API, from Google Webmaster Tools (now renamed Google Search Console) into the Google Analytics.
Webmasters has ever been flagged via the Safe Browsing API.
This means that every time Google detects malware on the webmaster's website, or other threats, such as phishing pages, a notification will be received in the Analytics dashboard.
The reasoning behind this decision was that webmasters check their Analytics dashboard much more often than they check Search Console. Additionally, other webmasters do not provide a valid email address where they can be reached or may not go through the process of checking it daily.
Google is now enhancing these alerts with new warnings that notify the webmaster whenever it detects SEO Spam on his website.
The notice, shown below, is much more needed after all, and SEO Spam has become extremely popular in recent months.
Imperva recently uncovered an SEO Spam campaign in which crooks hacked over 700 domains using SQL injections. Similarly, Sucuri discovered an India-based developer distributing empty WordPress themes and plugins that contained a backdoor that allowed him to gain access to the website and leave SEO Spam behind.
Google also reports that since September 2015, its website crawling tools have detected a 180 percent increase in hacked websites spreading SEO spam.
Previous research had shown that when Google came into direct contact with website owners, the likelihood of the website being fixed increased by 75 percent.
“This new notification gives us an additional way to notify website owners that their site may have been exposed,” explains Google’s Giacomo Gnecchi Ruscone.
