Users Report “Untitled” Spam Websites in Google’s Search Results
Over the past few days, Google users have reported an interesting new number of “untitled” links towards the top of Google’s search results. When clicked, these sites send users to spam websites.
The fake “untitled” results in these search queries contain descriptions under the title that do seem relevant to the search, but when the site is clicked, the website contains none of the previous information given in the description. This is hazardous to some users who may be baited into trusting the search result based on its seemingly trustworthy description. Reports confirm that this issue is happening on Google searches across all devices, from iPhones, Androids, and personal computers. Users have turned to Twitter, Reddit, and Google messaging forms to identify and raise awareness about this issue.
Response from Google
Luckily, Google has been notified of this issue and are reportedly working on a fix. After being informed of the issue on Twitter, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan guaranteed users that the problem is being looked into and worked on. Sullivan has also assured that these sites are simply spam and have no evidence of being dangerous malware, stating that the lack of malware is the reason why Google’s systems failed to catch the bug.
As of early February, some users have reported that this solution has been fixed, while others are still plagued with the issue.
Why this is Important
Despite this assurance from Search Liaison Danny Sullivan, it is important to reiterate that seemingly safe links which bring users to spam websites can still pose a threat to one’s online security and safety. Errors such as this demonstrate to users that they need to be careful on Google and other web search engines. This, in turn, continues to hurt the reputation of SEO and the safety of search pages. Google remains as the leading search engine for users across the world, but continued errors in their system such as this “untitled” spam bug going undetected identifies the vulnerabilities in google’s bug detection system that need to be addressed.