Google is cracking down on an activity where certain site owners are maliciously breaking Google’s Safe Browsing policies over and over again.
Google shows warnings before a user is about to visit a site that is in violation of Google’s Malware, Unwanted Software, Phishing, and Social Engineering Policies.
When the site is considered to be no longer harmful, Google will remove the warning.
What the search giant has noticed over time is that some sites will stop their harmful activity just long enough to get the warning removed. After the warning is removed, the sites will immediately revert to their harmful practices.
There is now a new classification for these types of websites: “Repeat Offenders”:
”With regards to Safe Browsing-related policies, Repeat Offenders are websites that repeatedly switch between compliant and policy-violating behavior for the purpose of having a successful review and having warnings removed.”
In the event that a site happens to get repeatedly hacked, it will not be considered a repeat offender. Only sites that intentionally publish harmful content will be considered repeat offenders.
Once an actual repeat offender has been identified, the webmaster will not be able to get rid of the Google warning on their site for at least 30 days.
”Once Safe Browsing has determined that a site is a Repeat Offender, the webmaster will be unable to request additional reviews via the Search Console for 30 days, and warnings will continue to show to users.”
When Google has identified a site as a repeat offender, the webmaster will be notified via the email address associated with Search Console.
