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Yesterday I discussed the issue of “this site may harm your computer” phrase flagged to each and every search result on Google. Google’s VP of Search Products Marissa Mayer has now responded to this issue. Actually one human error was responsible for this problem, she said, when importing the malware list from StopBadware.org, the URL ‘/’ was unintentionally added, meaning that every website would be included. Read the complete explanation of the issue.

What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message “This site may harm your computer” if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to get our list of URLs. StopBadware carefully researches each consumer complaint to decide fairly whether that URL belongs on the list. Since each case needs to be individually researched, this list is maintained by humans, not algorithms.

We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here’s the human error), the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes.

She also thanked the Google search for quickly resolving the issue. She also said Google search team carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent such incidents in future. We must appreciate the quick response from Google search team. In no time, Google acknowledged the error, apologized to its customers, and fixed the problem.