Google goes after websites that are 'repeat offenders' with its new Safe Browsing efforts

Google wants to make the Internet a safer place to surf, and now it will be taking those efforts in a slightly different direction. The company has revealed that the Safe Browsing warnings that it puts in front of sites that it considers malicious will expand to sites that it calls “repeat offenders”.

What does “repeat offenders” mean in this context? Google says that the label is used for websites that were found to be malicious at first but then seem to “reform”. They no longer seemed to pose a threat to the web surfing public, so Google removed the site warnings, only to have those same websites begin their malicious ways once again.

Google says that activity will now be flagged by Safe Browsing, and the site will be labeled as a “Repeat Offender”.  It adds:

Once Safe Browsing has determined that a site is a Repeat Offender, the webmaster will be unable to request additional reviews via the Search Console for 30 days, and warnings will continue to show to users. When a site is established as a Repeat Offender, the webmaster will be notified via email to their registered Search Console email address.

Google adds that the label will not be used for websites that are hacked and then get turned into malicious pages, via a third-party hacker, before being restored. It will only be used for sites which are designed specifically to attack web users.