Bing overdoing it with Malware detection

How To Detect and Remove Malware From Site

[mike2010]

I've got a couple sites flagged as malware, and there is no malware. Seems like lately they've stepped things up too much. Even a couple of my Google Adsense ads were flagged as Malware. And those ads are suppose to be monitored strictly.

Once I ask to re-evaluate....it passes.

Something they've done the last couple weeks, is overdoing it with their detection of false positives.

[incrediBILL]

Are you sure there's no malware?

If you have any ad networks on your site that include 3rd party ad networks that could be hacked it will report it as your site being infected.

[mike2010]

If it was something like that, we have no control on controlling that.

My argument is they need to be more careful with flagging a site for malware, that isn't malware...and thus taking over a week to re-evaluate the site, and the site being falsely penalized.

And when asking them WHAT specifically was the malware or malware site, they never specify what it was. Or which site the malware was pointing towards. Another factor in falsly flagging sites, in which they may just be flagging coding on your site as well / or innocent iframes.

I asked them 4 times to please specify the malware, and they said they can't.

[incrediBILL]

If it was something like that, we have no control on controlling that.

Sure you do, you remove shady ad networks from your site and find something more reputable.

Also, double check your pages and make sure you don't have any code injected into your pages you aren't aware exists. Double check the javascript and check for long lists of links.

If you're using a CDN for any of your javascript, it's possible the file on the CDN was infected.

I would look at all included files, the home page, check your DIRECTORIES, make sure you don't have a hacker in your site that added a new folder on your server. You may be serving up malware from a path you're not even familiar with from your own box, including a possible subdomain.

If any part of your site has an issue, they red flag the whole site.

One way to find this stuff using Firefox is to install something like NoScript, and then use their tools which show you all of the scripts attempting to load from your site. If there's anything you're not familiar with, it's probably where it's coming from. I've used NoScript to diagnose a couple of sites with malware before, not mine of course ;)

Hope that helps.

P.S. FYI, If you use a 302 redirect script to track all outbound link clicks, Google will actually attribute the malware to the page ON YOUR SITE that contains the redirected link! Damned annoying and very misleading.

[engine]

Sure you do, you remove shady ad networks from your site and find something more reputable.

He did mention AdSense ads, so that's a surprise as it's usually pretty good.

[not2easy]

AdSense offers "Third Party" ads which afaik are 'on' by default. I saw some sleazy looking ads and turned off 3rd party ads in AdSense, years ago. They have been known to be "carriers" in the past.

[mike2010]

Yes, one of them was Adsense which completely surprised me if the Bing detection is being that critical. (non-adult site) This is why I won't be surprised if more start complaining soon. Maybe if we google search we'll find more complainers.

The other was an adult site ..and it was a banner from one of the affiliate programs. But once again, I only use well-established adult affiliate program sites. I work just as professional / strict on these as I do the non-adult sites. I still need to pinpoint which banner...but removing it completely removed the malware warnings.

Now i'm just pissed as to how much this will affect my sites keyword rankings once the malware warnings are completely gone. (which should be soon, since the banner's gone)

[not2easy]

By any chance do you have Bing child-safe settings on or browser settings that limit adult content?

[mike2010]

indeed.

<meta name="RATING" content="RTA

code enabled on all sites.

either way, it has nothing to do with this malware issue.

[mike2010]

Props to Seroundtable for helping shed light on the issue -

[seroundtable.com...]

Before this issue, I felt very favorable of Bing and how their evolving with their search engine algorithms...I think their doing better than Google the last couple years. This is the only issue i'm having with Bing, and it's a rather big one, since I have no idea for how long my rankings will be affected even once the Malware warning has been lifted.

A response from Bing would be nice, since it's a pretty significant issue...regardless if it's only affected a small amount of webmasters so far.

[Musicarl]

I've seen at least one false positive on Bing. Page with no ads. Ran every scan we could find, looked things over good, and nothing. Frustrating since they don't give any direction and offer no recourse in case they're wrong.

[mike2010]

exactly...I've asked numerous times to please provide the source, and they provide nothing.

Also when your flagged like this, your site isn't even click-able from Bing Search. It gives a warning to the visitor and prevents them from accessing your site.

Lets get it together, Bing. This is pretty pathetic, and putting a bad stamp on their relatively good advances in search engine friendly algorithms lately the last few years. This for sure, is a step backwards.

[ImpactSocialMedia]

I am having the same nightmare and it is driving me batty.

Bing webmaster flags the site as 12 pages having malware but gives zero details on the offending code.

I then spent all day scanning the pages with many different resources. I then scanned all the outbound link destination urls and found nothing there.

What is odd is Bing webmaster says 12 pages have malware but only 2 of them are blocked in their search and none are blocked at Yahoo. Even more odd is a support request at Bing ads came back and said the destination URLS had no malware... this is nuts.

Yeah... while I am running Bing ads on these destination URLS and that dept says all clear no malware - simultaneously Bing WMT says they have malware... what on earth is going on with that?

I have sent numerous emails begging for help and have been very detailed in my explanations. Every email response I got back was of no help whatsoever. My experience is just like the others here. Hours and hours and hours of labor reveals absolutely no malware and Bing refuses to give me any clue as to the offending code.

Is this not ridiculous? If the goal is to remove malware why on earth would they not just simply provide details so the offending code could be removed in minutes...

Do they refuse to provide details of the offending code to protect themselves from being exposed of false positives?

I am astounded that a company as big as Microsoft can not do any better than this!

If you are unlucky enough to get caught in this abusive circle of death my heart goes out to you.

[engine]

Bing explains more about malware detection, but has it served more data to webmasters over the compromised site/page? [webmasterworld.com...]

[ImpactSocialMedia]

Let me continue my story.... As of today Bing WMT reports my 12 pages as clean from malware and none of them are banned on their search engine anymore.

I did nothing to fix them. I also did not submit them for re-evaluation because I could find nothing wrong to fix and did not want to incur additional penalties for wasting their time.

I am glad that the pages are no longer banned but I am out about 3 days labor on this go around and was banned for about a week or longer on their search engine argh.

Based on an article I read yesterday at Search Engine Land - Google now holds about 67% of the market share. In other words, being banned at Bing and Yahoo is not helpful.

I think it's a great step forward for Bing to get more aggressive against malware sites. I can assure you on a few occasions I have landed at some very harmful web pages after clicking their search results.

With that being said, I would humbly submit that the goal of Bing and 99.9% of webmasters is the same - we do not want any malware on a web page. On this note I hope that Bing will go a step beyond finding malware and take action to provide us webmasters with specific details so that we can effectively remove the malware as quickly as possible.