As you know, Search Engine Land was delisted from Google's search results for most of the day on Friday because a bug in Google's hack sites classifier labeled the site as being hacked. Colin McDermott ran a Twitter poll asking if Google should delist the site or just issue a warning. 2/3rds of those who responded said Google should just issue a warning.
The question was "Should Google completely remove websites that it suspects are hacked/serving malware?"
- 36% said Yes, remove the website
- 64% said No, a warning is enough
Here is that poll:
Should Google completely remove websites that it suspects are hacked/serving malware?
— Colin McDermott (@colinmcdermott) November 30, 2018
John Mueller from Google said it isn't that simple:
Fwiw I don't see this as something that is either/or, there are times to do one or the other.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 30, 2018
He also implied Google stepped up their hack site filtering and maybe that is why? But he didn't clearly say that, it was maybe implied:
If you're not seeing that many hacked results in search, why might that be?
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 30, 2018
And then this:
Thanks! I assume DDG might have multiple data centers that could produce variations or that Bing, which DDG gets results from, certainly has multiple ones. As you definitely get & I hope others understand, that can produce differences that have nothing to do with personalization
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) December 5, 2018
Anyway, I can see it from both sides. No one wants their site to be delisted over a false positive. But at the same time, Google doesn't want anyone going to a site that can end up harming people. Tough call and bugs do happen.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
