Google – What the hell is going on

When Morgan Lighter, a friend of mine, told me that he got a strange message/warning from Google when he clicked on my website, I thought it was a joke or nothing serious and deiced not to investigate any further. I prefer writing without bothering much about what goes around the blogsphere or Googlesphere. I control my traffic occasionally and thus Google’s Webmaster tools and all the like. But when 4 days later, after Morgan’s email, I typed Kabatology on Google search, I saw this message that made me freeze – “This site may harm your computer.” Damn it.

I’ve never never indulged in or promoted badware distribution on this weblog and in any other place, and if I recommend Linux distros, and open source apps like Firefox, its simply because I feel safer therein.

In the letter Google sent to me they said the problem could be this post -> Discover and Share your Favourite Websites Without Installing StumbleUpon Toolbar. Now, I’ll really like to know how harmful this post could be.

What makes me go crazy is that after having followed their instructions at Webmaster Help Center, the reply I got was – – “We’ll review the site. If we find that it’s no longer in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines, we’ll reinclude the site in our index. Please allow several weeks for the reconsideration request. We do review all requests, but unfortunately we can’t reply indivclassually to each request.”

Please allow several weeks for the reconsideration request – WTF. So quick to judge and condemn, yet so slow to reconsider.

The absolute lack of a search engine (Google’s monopoly of the search engine market) alternative should not make Google a bully, but more responsible in its decisions. It is damn true that a lot of websites out there are promoters of badware -to use a Google term, but they can’t tag a site “harmful” for just a minimum-doubt and let it stay in the “dark” for several weeks.

Feel free to browse this weblog, There is no Adware, Malware or Badware.
Update:17/03/2008;
Still trying to figure out what could have caused this “Malware” curse from Google. My WordPress is
up to date, even though I some how thing it could be a WordPress security flaw, as of now I have no clues to back that. My web hosting service too just reported no malware on their server side so that leaves me with Ads or links from this weblog. I’ve got Adsense, Bluehost and Ttz Media, but none of these seem to have bad_scripts or distribute malware (Google guidelines say “If your website links to badware, your site’s visitors may be in danger, even when the bad software or code exploits are not actually hosted on your site.”).
Update:20/03/2008;
Finally Google takes off the “curse” on Kabatology,, I was informed today with an email from StopBadWare.org ( A coalition of tech companies — Google, PC maker Lenovo, Sun Microsystems) and it says “We have received and processed your request for review of your website, kabatology.com/. Google’s most recent test of your website found no badware behaviors on the site. As such, the Google warning page for your site has either already been removed or should be removed shortly. In addition, if your site has been listed in our Badware Website Clearinghouse, we will remove your site from the Clearinghouse list.”