Google now blocks sites with fake download buttons

We have all been to those pesky websites that have masses of download buttons surrounding the real one hidden on the page, leading to adverts or worse.

From November 2015, Google started blocking sites that used “social engineering attacks” to gain sensitive information. Today marks the beginning of the cull on “deceptive embedded content” such as those often seen in adverts. This means that any websites serving common “click-baits” such as Flash Player updates, warnings of infections or the dreaded download buttons are susceptible to Google’s blocks.

These sites will begin to be blocked by the existing Safe Browsing technology, which you have probably encountered before when accessing non encrypted sites or from dodgy website results. Until now, this has only stopped the access of sites known to serve malware or be harmful in any way.

However, this may cause trouble for some webmasters, since many websites serve advertisements from third party providers. So we may see some sites being blocked for deceptive content from random ad servers that are not as easy to track down. Interestingly, Google’s webmaster knowledge base does not offer any concrete advise on combating this.

ad networks may rotate the ads shown on your site’s pages. You therefore might need to refresh a page a few times before you’re able to see any social engineering ads appear.

In addition, mainstream downloading websites such as CNET and Sourceforge could be taking a big hit in future, as they regularly serve these known deceptive download buttons.

For the rest of us though, this change will be much appreciated. Hopefully this marks the beginning of the end for ridiculous, and frankly annoying, websites littered with click-bait deceptive content.