[Nottingham] A Google Webmaster Scam?

[Ian P. Christian]

Also make sure when checking your pages that you fetch as google bot, fake
your browser string.
*very* carefully check .htaccess, as i've seen sites compromised by a
rewrite rule to /images/image.php which only affects (via code in that PHP
file, not in the .htaccess) things identifying as Google.


On 19 December 2012 05:27, Andy Smith <andy at strugglers.net> wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>
> On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 02:36:02AM +0000, Martin wrote:
> > After upgrading to the latest Wordpress 3.5, Google have dropped this
> > bombshell and have insisted that I join the "Webmasters Tools" site to
> > remove their blacklisting from the NLUG site...
> >
> > So... Is this for real?!
>
> Speaking as a hoster, every single time Google have sent me one of
> these regarding a site on my network it has been accurate, i.e. the
> site has been serving malware. On multiple occasions this has not
> been obvious to me upon a casual inspection.
>
> Usually it has been hostile Javascript inserted into pages through
> exploits in forum/blog/cms software or even on a few occasions just
> the admin leaving administrative write permission enabled (so anyone
> could upload pages containing raw HTML/JS).
>
> So my advice would be to check the source of your pages carefully.
>
> > Unfortunately, from this example, it looks like Google already have the
> > power to rule the internet...
>
> I assume that if you do indeed find your site was serving content
> that you did not authorise then you will concede that Google are
> using their power in this instance for good? :)
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
> --
> http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
>
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