So this is a bit of a rant, I’ll admit.
Over the course of the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten some emails from friends and colleagues saying “Hey Will, did you know your blog is getting a malware warning on Safari on Mac?”
Alarmed, I clicked on the Google diagnostics link, and saw
Google provides these kinds of services through a variety of different affiliated and semi-affiliated organizations.
Notice the issue here? “This site is note currently listed as suspicious” “0 items of malware.” So why exactly is there this warning? And why does it *only* show up in Safari? And why does the warning only happen on Mac? And why does it only happen on the home page? Lots of questions.
Ok, questions aside, next, I took a spin over to my ISP to see if anyone had hacked the site, uploaded anything nasty, cast a spell on the site. After spending far more time than I wanted to reading through FTP logs, etc (why is it so hard to provide a graph of access over time?), digging through the file system, and just beating my head against the wall. What had triggered the warning?
Still not knowing, I at least decided that I was convinced I was clean. Time to head over to Google Web Master tools. There, I selected my site, and asked for “reconsideration.”
Time passes. This afternoon, I got an email from another friend warning me that Safari on a Mac was flagging me for malware. Wondering, I logged back into Google’s tools only to find that I had a new message waiting for me. Woo hoo, maybe there’s resolution, or at least guidance on how to correct the issue.
We’ve processed your reconsideration request for http://ux-strategy.com/ August 17, 2009
We received a request from a site owner to reconsider how we index the following site: http://ux-strategy.com/.
We’ve now reviewed your site. When we review a site, we check to see if it’s in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines. If we don’t find any problems, we’ll reconsider our indexing of your site. If your site still doesn’t appear in our search results, check our Help Center for steps you can take.
Huh? What the hell does that mean? Well, I’m so glad you took the time to send this extremely informative response.
So now I’m caught in limbo: the one avenue of appeal the site tells me pursue, provides a useless non-answer, and yet I’m still tagged in Safari on the Mac. Kafka, I hear you laughing.
Update: Also known as #fail. Now it it fails only if you’re running Leopard on a Mac – works fine in Show Leopard. Fun. Thanks Apple & Google.
Related Posts:
- Video of “MIX08: The Business Value of Design”
- Now this is just funny: The great internet crash of 2007
- Express Yourself: The problem, personas, rules & criteria
- Maybe this internet thing *is* going to catch on
- Design Problem for Phizzpop Design Challenge Nationals
Tags: No Comments
