Website flagged as unsafe by Google, Facebook or antivirus
Browsers, social networks and antivirus programs warn people away from sites they believe contain malware, phishing or spam. Common warnings are:
- Google Chrome: “Deceptive site ahead” or “The site ahead contains malware” (a red page)
- Facebook: “Your content couldn’t be shared”, or links are removed from posts
- Antivirus software or company firewalls blocking your site
1. Check why you were flagged
Section titled “1. Check why you were flagged”- Google: check Google Safe Browsing site status for your domain, and Security & Manual Actions → Security issues in Google Search Console. It often lists example pages.
- Facebook: paste your link into the Facebook Sharing Debugger. It says if the link is blocked.
- Other services: VirusTotal checks your address against many antivirus services at once and shows which ones flag it.
2. Clean your website
Section titled “2. Clean your website”The warning won’t be removed until the cause is gone. Scan and clean your site, then close the way in by updating everything and changing passwords. See Scanning for malware with Imunify360 and Monarx.
Also check for:
- phishing pages someone uploaded, such as fake bank or login pages, often in a hidden folder
- links in your pages to other sites that are flagged
- redirects to other sites in
.htaccessor your theme files
3. Ask for a review
Section titled “3. Ask for a review”- Google: in Search Console, go to Security issues, tick I have fixed these issues, and click Request Review. Describe what you cleaned. Reviews usually take a few days. See Requesting Google to review hacked sites.
- Facebook: in the Sharing Debugger, click Scrape Again. If it’s still blocked, report the block as a mistake using Facebook’s feedback link on the error message.
- Antivirus companies: each one has a form for reporting a false positive, or a “request review” link on VirusTotal results.
Facebook shows the wrong image or text
Section titled “Facebook shows the wrong image or text”If your link shares fine but shows old details, it’s a caching issue, not a block. See I shared my website on Facebook but it displayed an incorrect preview.
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