Yahoo! Shows Google as a Malware! Turns out to be Yahoo! URL Mix-Up!

May 13th, 2008 | 2,370 Views RSS Feed

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our Full RSS feed to get a daily digest of news around search engine industry.

Since the successful launch of McAfee powered Yahoo's Search Scan, it was only a matter of time for something to go wrong. It seems luck just isn't going Yahoo's way.

According to a post on TechCrunch, a small glitch in the Yahoo! SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) that are now powered by SearchScan showed the Google Home Page as a potential Malware Threat.

Search results on Yahoo! for the query Astalavista returned various results with Google.com as a part of search results. The Google home page was placed at position tenth and was marked as 'Dangerous Downloads'. It seems like Yahoo! somehow managed to mix-up Google's URL with that of Astalavista's.

Yahoo! Shows Google as a Malware! Turns out to be Yahoo! URL Mix-Up!

However, Yahoo! has now corrected the mistake and for the same search query, the results are exactly what they should be.

Yahoo! needs to take a second look at these mistakes, as it may cause further troubles that might be difficult to encounter. Additionally, if Yahoo! is indeed looking for a partnership with Google, it should better watch its steps.

Click here to subscribe to our RSS feed to get a daily digest of news around search engine industry. PageTraffic SEO Blog is updated four times a day and is ranked as one of the best search engine resources blog by Pandia!

Did you like this article?

Know About a Malware? Tell Google About It, Direct!
Google's safe browsing page allows you to report malwares to Google directly. Google it seems...
Yahoo Adds New Feature "Top Queries” To Site Explorer!
Barry at Search Engine Roundtable informs that, Yahoo has come up with a new feature called “T...
Yahoo! Celebrates 14th Birthday!
The script was written in the year 1995. Exactly fourteen years ago, Yahoo! was officially incorpora...
Yahoo! Says: You Could Go To Google! But For Straight Answers, Stay Here!
Malwares Removed: But No Clear Comments from Google!

Comments

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

45552 Responses2008-05-13+08%3A02%3A23Navneet+Kaushal to “Yahoo! Shows Google as a Malware! Turns out to be Yahoo! URL Mix-Up!”

Hugh Robinson Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 14:49
At least Yahoo is doing something about the malware in their directory serps. I have complained to Google about the same for months. In fact Google stores so much malware in cached pages that it is no wonder mefee lists them as a No No.
David Lewis Says:
May 14th, 2008 at 07:42
That was a ghost listing on rarely-searched keyword.

We have been wrongly subjected to a red warning about SPAM on any listing that remains for AnyCoupons on Yahoo. We saw most of our paid search campaigns taken offline after a 5-year relationsip (9 years if you count my employment with GoTo / Overture) and had our Paid Inclusion campaign terminated after 4 years. All due to a false positive.

McAfee removed the false positive yesterday morning but Yahoo has done nothing.

You can read all of the details including Yahoo's e-mails to me at http://www.revenews.com/davidlewis/my-life-as-a-spammer-or-so-says-yahoo/#comment-16159

-David