Google Says Search Engine Results Are Safe From Malware

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

I’m with Jordan McCollum on this one. Google says its SERPs are safe (for the most part) from malware and other malicious files. The search engine isnt’ satisfied with that, and I’m glad they’re not because that means they’ll work on improving it. But does this mean you shouldn’t have AdAware and virus protection on your computers? Uh, no.

If you live in China, you should especially make sure that you are safe at the local level. But even if you live elsewhere, as in the good ol’ U.S.A., you should seek local protection through firewalls, virus protection, and AdAware programs on your computers and servers. That 1.3% could be the killer.

But, remember, we’re only talking about statistics from Google. This study does not address the search engine results pages of other search engines: Yahoo, MSN Live, Ask, and smaller search engines, some of which may have a specific niche that they serve. You are more likely to get malicious files from the small search engines that likely don’t have the human power or technology to address the issue head on. To make a long story short, you should be careful when searching out there on niche sites. Stick to Google for search engine optimization and you’ll relatively little to worry about.