As unfortunate as it may be, not all webmasters are as ethical and law-abiding as you and I.  Some websites and advertising agencies use the internet as a means for distribution of malicious or misrepresented material.  Spyware, malware, and deceptive adware all collectively referred to as "badware".

In a move to protect users from sites containing such material, Google recently began implementing a Badware Warning system that alerts users who click on search results leading to pages containing badware.  The alert lets Google users know that the Google crawler has detected programs, scripting, or advertisements containing badware on the page about to be viewed.  It gives you the option of learning more about badware or returning to the previous page.

If a user wants to continue on and visit the offending website, they have to manually enter the address into their web browser.  The Google aleart will not forward the user on.

That's a serious matter.  If a website gets flagged by Google as a badware site you can be guaranteed their ranking will suffer and their traffic will more than likely plummet as a result.  Seriously stop and think about it.  If you were an average internet user and THE internet search engine says "no way… I'm not sending you to that website"… would you even consider manually going to the webpage?

Sometimes, though, badware isn't the result of intentional deceptiveness or malice from the website owner.  In many cases, an advertisement or program that a website owner puts on their site might be the culprit.  Google's crawler will still flag that website as a badware site.

To help unknowing website owners combat sneaky badware, Google has updated its webmaster tools to include a new badware alert (pictured at left) for website owners.  If you use Google Webmaster Tools, and your site has been flagged for badware, you'll see a new alert on the Diagnostic Summary tab.  The alert tells you what was flagged and what can be done to get your site removed from the badware list.  According to the Google Webmaster Central Blog, the update is the first of many improvements being made to the Webmaster Tools to help website owners identify issues on their sites.

If you're already using Google Webmaster Tools I'd suggest you check your Diagnostic Summary tab… just to be safe.  If you're not using Webmaster Tools I'd suggest you start.  They're simple to use, free, and might just keep your site from getting badwared.