Google has officially announced a new section being added to their Webmaster Tools. The section, titled “Security Issues” is designed to provide information to webmasters about security issues on their pages. Security problems such as malware, virus infection, site hacks and more are all listed in this area so the webmaster can take prompt action. In addition to just listing potential security problems, the section will also offer information on how to fix the problems.
There will be information about the specific security problems so you can learn about them. Depending on the type of security threat, you may be able to read about what impact it is having on visitors, when the threat was detected, what types of things may have lead to the problem, and much more. It will even list which URLs on your site are currently having the issue, so you can track down the source of the problem.
One of the most helpful additions to this page is the fact that it will show you the snippet of code that is causing the problem. If, for example, someone hacked your site and added in some sort of malware advertising, Google will display the exact code and where it is located so you can manually remove it if necessary. This is excellent for threats like code injection, SQL injection, content injection and much more.
Finally, they’ve also made it easy to request a review after you’ve fixed the problem. Google often removes sites from their search index when they are infected with security issues. This is a step they take to protect potential visitors to your site. On this new page, you’ll be able to quickly let Google know that your site is now clean, so they can re-test and add you back to the search index. In many cases you should even get your normal search rankings back right away.
While nobody will want to have to use this new screen, it seems like it will be extremely valuable if your site is ever hacked or runs into other security problems.
