Get Google’s opinion on site safety

Internet is filled with sites that spread malware and browsing is like walking rope above those.

Antivirus and firewall are a must but they don’t tell you if specific site is safe or not. Google does.

Google Safe Browsing

When user googles, clicks result and gets infected with bunch of malware he will say Google is at fault. Yeah, not fair.

So Google keeps an eye out for sites spreading malware. Those get marked as such in search results but there is also manual check for additional information.

How to check

Follow the link:

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=www.rarst.net

Replace link at the end with whatever site you want to check. Not too user-friendly but easy.

Details and scanning rate

Safe browsing provides information on:

• is site considered suspicious at moment;
• when was it last checked;
• was it considered suspicious at any time in last three months.

Worth noting that tool is pretty slow at scanning and doesn’t seem to be hooked in main Google bots. Took it months to notice my blog, long after it was properly indexed by Google.

Neighborhood

Recent addition (at least I had only noticed it today) is information on network where site is hosted. Also nice but informational value is spoiled – every single site I checked today had numerous (from dozens to over thousand) sites hosted nearby and spreading malware.

Overall

No replacement for security software but decent way to check if site has or had history of harmful behavior.