Webmasters beware: Google is watching

Google is set to start sending out warnings to operators of infected sites in a bid to clean up the internet.

Possibly because it feels a bit like a taxi driver dropping its passengers off at some dodgy destinations, the firm will send snippets of code to webmasters, alerting them to problems on their sites and generally giving them a nudge in the 'clean up your act' direction.

The new information will appear as part of Webmaster Tools, a suite of tools provided by the firm. "In addition to helping the webmasters of sites with malware warnings, this new detail is also designed to promote the general health of the web," Google's Lucas Ballard said on the firm's online security blog.

"While we're excited to offer this feature, we caution webmasters to use the tool only as a starting point in their site clean-up process," he added.

"Google's scanners may not be able to provide malware samples in all cases, and the malware samples may not be a complete list of all the malware on the page. More importantly, we advise against simply removing the examples that are displayed in Webmaster Tools. If the underlying vulnerability is not identified and patched, it is likely that the site will be compromised again."

Webmasters have to be registered with Google in order to get nagged in this way. Form an orderly queue please.