Posted on 25th Nov 2009

Is My Site Infected? by Simon Friend

I was recently sent an email that appeared to be from Google to one of my websites info@ email addresses. I was immediately very suspicious of the email and so forwarded to Google (phising@google.com) for their attention.

The email stated that my site had been infected and provided two links to look at. One was a google link with my site appended to the end, the other was a page on my site with a load of gobbledegook appended to it.

I checked the domain for the accused page and viewed the HTML on the site which all looked fine. I also searched Google for the site which also showed no signs of infection. After a lot of digging around and reading forum posts I found Googles very own diagnostic tool which allows you to check for yourself whether there is or has been any malicious material on your site.

Luckily the check revealed that there were no infections which filled me with confidence so I just thought I would let people know that I believe some hoax Google emails are going round and to check for yourself using the Google tool before jumping to any conclusions. I would definitely recommend forwarding the email to Google too, although don't expect an immediate response!

Social Bookmarks