Malware Warning! IZEA Media Ads Cause 1,000s of Websites to be Flagged by Google

Hey there.  If you have stopped by my website anytime within the past 24 hours, you may have gotten a message saying that my website may contain malware and it may be dangerous to view my website.  Rest assured that if you proceeded to my site, you were NOT infected with malware.  There was no malware hosted on this site.  The problem?  The IZEA Media Ad block that I was running in the right column.  Turns out that an advertiser purchased a spot in the ad block from IZEA and somehow, someway, that advertiser managed to get through the IZEA screening with some kind of malicious code on their ad.  In effect, Google flagged THOUSANDS of webpages running the IZEA Media Ad block as hosting  malware, causing that red warning screen.

Now, I didn't find out that it was the IZEA Media Ads until this morning.  I noticed that my site was flagged last night at around 8 PM Pacific and tried practically everything to get rid of it.  This morning, our good friend Justin, at Dragonblogger.com, noticed that his site was flagged by Google and he started to do some research.  At about that time, IZEA posted on their blog providing a statement that their ad blocks were to blame.  You can read that statement here.  I was surprised that it was brief post and other than the "we're working on it" message, there really wasn't anything more to take from that post.  If you really want to get into the meat of the problem, read the comments.  Wow!  

I was frustrated and upset, just like many others were.  To have my site down for any period of time is a blow to my reputation.  I do not want my readers to associate my site with having malicious codes ready to infect their computers.  I issued a statement to my fans via Facebook and Google + letting them know what's going on.  Because I still consider myself to be a small fry in the blogging world, I didn't let the outage get me too down.  But some of the bigger guys like Dragonblogger.com and BenSpark.com are a huge influence to many and to have websites of that caliber to be hit is a HUGE shame.  Not only are they losing readers, but they are losing out on generated income via traffic and sales.  How is IZEA planning on accommodating their bloggers???  Especially when many of us have been with IZEA for years?

That is what IZEA faces at this moment.  After reading the comments in their blog post, I was surprised to hear that some of the staff were treating bloggers like this was the bloggers fault and NOT IZEA's.  Now, the people that I have worked with at IZEA have been nothing but good to me.  The company has offered me many income generating opportunities and I am grateful for those opportunities and the doors that they have opened for me.  This is the first time that I have ever encountered an issue with them.  EVER.  With that being said, IZEA needs to do some serious damage control.  There are a lot of unhappy bloggers that are taking a huge hit.  It's a lot of work to build up a fan base, to build an online reputation.  If this issue does not get resolved quickly, years of hard work will be flushed down the drain.  For every minute that a site is flagged for malware, readers are lost, revenue is lost, and reputation is lost.  It would be a shame to have great sites be blacklisted for something that they are not at fault for.

For those of you that are still flagged...  I'm sorry that your site is not up and running just yet.  I'm one of the lucky few that was flagged with the warning and have had the warning removed.  This is how I got rid of it:

• I removed both snippets of code for the IZEA Media Ads (html code embedded in your template and the html placement code in your layout)
• I signed in to Google Webmaster Tools, clicked on my site, clicked on "Health" and then Malware.  If the button to review your site is available, click on it for Google to review (if you do not see a review button, try refreshing the page a few times).  If you do not see a review button, click on "Fetch as Google" and click on the Fetch button.
• After Google fetches your site, check the Malware section for the Review button again.
• After all that was done, I went to StopBadware.org and clicked on Website Owners near the top.
• I searched for my site (without www before your domain name.  Eg. metallman.com NOT www.metallman.com)
• Your website should come up with a yellow circle next to it.  Click on your website.
• Click on Request an Independent Review of Data Provider's Findings
• Sign up, provide your Email and wait...

That's what I did and after a short while, I received an Email from StopBadware that my site is clean and off blacklists.  I am not sure if this will work for everyone but I strongly suggest you give it a try.  ESPECIALLY if Google Webmaster Tools is not offering you the button to review.  

I saw a huge dip in traffic today but I can honestly say that I didn't lose out on any major earning opportunities.  At this point, I'm just glad that my site is up and running.  If you don't mind sharing, I'm curious to know whether or not the above helped in any way  Good luck, friends!!!  Later!