For 40 minutes today Google search users were unable to access search results due to ‘technical problems’.
During Saturday 31st January search results were flagged as potentially harmful and users were shown a message to warn them that the site “may harm your computer”.
Searchers that tried to click on the link they wanted were referred to another page that asked them to try another one.
The fault was diagnosed as a ‘human error’ and affected the Search Engine giant for about 40 minutes.
“What happened? Very simply, human error,” wrote Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience, on the Official Google Blog.
Google works closely with stopbadware.org to ascertain which sites install malicious software on people’s computers and merit a warning.Stopbadware.org investigates consumer complaints to decide which sites are dangerous.
The list of malevolent sites is regularly updated and handed to Google.
When Google updated the list on Saturday, it mistakenly flagged all sites as potentially dangerous.
“We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again,” Ms Mayer wrote.
