How to Fix ‘The Site Ahead Contains Malware’ Warning in Google

Seeing a ‘The site ahead contains malware’ warning for your site is bad. Google has added it to their blacklist, because it thinks your site has been hacked.

You will lose visitors because they fear their devices might get infected by visiting your site. Even if you don’t see the warning, chances they can.

Deep scan your site for malware right now. A scan will tell you whether your site has malware or not.

The good news is, even if your site is affected, you can fix it easily. It’s very important to resolve it quickly since the longer malware stays, the more issues it can cause.

TL;DR: Start with a malware scanner and resolve the issue, before you request Google to review your website. Google has marked your site as compromised with the ‘site ahead contains malware’ warning. Time is of the essence.

What the ‘The site ahead contains malware’ message means

‘The site ahead contains malware’ error is one of Google’s Blacklist warnings, but it isn’t the only one.

Warnings like these are part of Google’s Safe Browsing initiative, which regularly scans websites and flags them when it finds suspicious code, pages, or links.

This particular warning is shown to potential site visitors if Google finds malware on your website. It blacklists hacked WordPress websites to warn its users that their security may be compromised if they visit the site. 

Google warnings are merely symptoms of a hack, and they have enough bad consequences on their own. The warning ‘The site ahead contains malware’ can drastically reduce your organic traffic overnight.

Now imagine: if the consequences of the malware warning are so bad, the hack itself must be terrible right? 

As if this isn’t bad enough, Google can completely delist your website from its search engine after it has been blacklisted. This will lead to your website losing all organic traffic. On top of it, your web host will eventually suspend your account, and you will lose access to your website and all your data.

Other potential symptoms of malware on your site

The ‘site ahead contains malware’ notice is a straightforward sign that your WordPress site is hacked. Scanning is the easiest way to confirm a hack, but it is always good to be aware of the additional symptoms of the hack. 

While symptoms are a pretty good way to detect hacks, you cannot have a proper diagnosis until you scan your website. Scanning not only confirms a hack on your WordPress site but also helps you locate the malware if you use the right tools.

3 steps to fix the ‘The site ahead contains malware’

Follow these three steps to solve the issue:

1. Remove the hack from your site.
2. Submit your site to Google for reindexing.
3. Protect your site from future attacks.

In this article, we’ll guide you through each step. We’ll explain different methods, with their pros and cons, to help you pick the best option.

Step 1: Remove malware from your WordPress site

After a thorough scan (and confirmation that your site has malware), now comes the part where you actually clean the malware off your website.

We recommend using a security plugin for the cleanup because it is the fastest and most effective way to get rid of the malware. But there are several ways in which you can clean your WordPress site. We have listed the three most common methods for you to pick from.

Option 1: Auto-clean with a security plugin [RECOMMENDED]

The best way to clean up your WordPress site is with a dedicated security plugin, like MalCare.

We recommend MalCare because it gets rid of every trace of malware from your website within minutes, and all you have to do is click a button. If you have already used MalCare for scanning your site, you’re already halfway there, but if not this is how you auto-clean your WordPress site with MalCare.

• Install MalCare on your WordPress site, and let your site sync
• Upgrade your account to access the cleanup feature
• Click on ‘auto-clean’ and watch as MalCare cleans up your site

As a bonus, MalCare continues to protect your site even after the clean-up with its powerful firewall and regular scans, alerting you if it detects malware.

💡 If your site is offline because your web host found malware before you did, contact them to request whitelisting your IP and MalCare’s IP. Reach out to our support team, and they’ll guide you on the next steps.

Option 2: Contact a maintenance service

If you don’t want to use a security plugin, another way to clean up your website is to hire a WordPress maintenance service. They will have security experts go through your website manually and clean it up for you.

While we cannot assure you of the quality of all clean-up services out there, it is still a better option than to clean up your website manually. Security experts also use tools to be thorough, because manual cleaning leaves a lot of space for errors.

Note: Clean-up services usually charge per clean-up and do not offer any protection against reinfection. So if your site gets reinfected, the clean-up charges can mount up.

Option 3: Clean malware manually

As we have mentioned before, manual cleaning is not recommended. There are several reasons why you should not attempt to remove malware your website by yourself unless you are a security expert.

The most important reason is that you could actually break your website by deleting something that is integral.

But in the spirit of being thorough, we have added this section for your convenience.

You can clean your WordPress site manually by following these instructions step-by-step.

1. Make sure you have access to your website: Many times, a hack can lead to your web host suspending your account and you may end up losing access to your site entirely. In this case, you need to email your web host and request them to whitelist your IP for clean-up.

2. Take a backup: This step is very important. Back up your website before you start cleaning up. This way if anything goes wrong, you can restore your website. Even if your website is hacked, it is still functional, and it’s a lot better than having no website.

3. Download clean files for WordPress core, plugins, and themes: To locate and identify malware, you need a base reference. Download the clean installs of WordPress core files, and all the themes and plugins on your website. Make sure to download the same versions as those on your website.

4. Reinstall WordPress core: Now you need to start by cleaning up the core WordPress files. You can entirely replace the wp-admin and wp-includes folders, as they carry no user content. 
   
   Once you are done with this, look for PHP files in the wp-uploads folder. There shouldn’t be any, so if you find any PHP files, delete them.
   
   You will have to now start looking for strange code and oddities in all the other core files. These files are a good place to start:
   
   index.php
   wp-config.php
   wp-settings.php
   wp-load.php
   .htaccess

5. Clean up the themes and plugins files: The next step is to clean all the themes and plugins files. You can find these files in the wp-contents folder. You will have to go through each file carefully and review every line of code for signs of malware. 
   
   Given that there is no template for malicious code, you will have to compare each file with the fresh installs and see if there are any oddities in the installed files. You can use an online diffchecker to speed up this process. 
   
   Also, note that not all extra or different code is malware. Customizations can also change the code, and if you delete that, it might wipe out any customizations that you may have made. 

6. Clean up your database tables: In order to clean up your database, you will have to access the database tables from your website. You can use phpMyAdmin to download and view the tables. 
   
   Go through each table one by one and look for strange code that may seem out of place. Strange code is not exactly explanatory because malware can disguise itself as part of the code and there is no example that it follows.

7. Remove all the backdoors: You are almost done. You have cleaned all the files and tables on your WordPress site and the malware is gone. But unless you address the cause of the hack, your website will keep getting reinfected. 
   
   Hacks generally occur due to backdoors on your WordPress site, which are loopholes in the code that allow hackers to gain access. In order to secure your site, you will have to remove these backdoors. You can look for these popular keywords that are usually present in backdoors, but these keywords also have legitimate applications, so be careful before deleting anything: eval, base64_decode, gzinflate, preg_replace, str_rot13

8. Reupload clean files: Now that you have cleaned up all your WordPress files and tables, it is time to reupload the cleaned files. You will have to use File Manager and phpMyAdmin for this. You will first need to delete all the files on your website, and then upload the clean ones. This process is similar to a manual restore, so you can take a look at this detailed guide that instructs you how to successfully manually restore your WordPress site. 

9. Clean cache: Cache is a copy of your website that is stored to make your website load faster. But if your website is infected, then the cache will also have malware. So you will have to clear WordPress cache in order to get rid of all the traces of malware from your website. 

10. Confirm with a security scanner: The clean-up is done and dusted! Now before you approach Google for a review, you want to be absolutely sure that the malware is gone from your website. Use a security scanner to scan your site and confirm that it is indeed malware-free. 

Step 2: Remove the ‘The site ahead contains malware’

Your website is finally clean, and you are closer to getting the ‘site ahead contains malware’ warning removed from your website. Before you can approach Google with a review request, you need to be absolutely sure that there is no malware on your website anymore. 

Review requests are dealt with manually by Google. So be patient after you submit a request, it will take a few days to get the warning removed even if your request fulfills all the requirements. In order to request a review from Google, follow these steps:

• Log in to your Google Search Console account
• Go to the security issues tab in Google Search Console
• Select “I have fixed the issues”
• Click on the ‘request a review’ button
• Describe what was done to fix issues
• Submit

Please note, you need to do is be patient and wait for a response. If you send too many requests, it can lead to Google flagging you as a ‘repeat offender.’

What to do if Google rejects your request

There are times when Google rejects your request claiming that they can still detect malware. This can happen in the following cases:

1. The cache wasn’t cleaned, and it still has traces of malware. In this case, you will have to clear the cache and resubmit the request.
2. Old links to spam sites are still getting flagged as malware. Check the Google scan results that Google has shared, and remove any spam links.
3. Manual cleanup wasn’t successful. The only solution here is to get a security plugin and let it conduct a thorough scan and cleanup.

Make sure that your website is absolutely clean, because you will get a 30-day ban from Google, if you submit too many requests. Google rarely detects false positives, so it behooves you to make sure your website is 100% malware-free. 

Step 3: Prevent malware attacks on your WordPress site

You now know how much damage malware can cause, and what it takes to get malware removed from your website.

Don’t stop at removal though, or you’ll be in the same position in a few weeks again.

It is important to take steps to prevent hacks from occurring again. Just a few measures can secure your website enough so that you avoid most of the malware, and if any hacks get through, you can take care of them before there is any loss.

Why did your WordPress site get flagged?

Your WordPress website getting flagged with the ‘google site ahead contains malware’ warning is a sign that your website has been hacked. Googlebot is thorough when it crawls websites, therefore the chances of a false positive are very low.

It is a safe bet to assume that your website is infected with malware. More importantly, it needs to be cleaned up before you can do anything about the warning. 

The presence of malware on your website could be due to hidden vulnerabilities or backdoors on your site, nulled themes and plugins, not having a proper security plan for your site, or not using SSL. 

While identifying the reason for the hack is important, your current priority should be locating and cleaning the malware. 

Why does Google flag hacked websites?

Google wants its search users to have a safe browsing experience.To encourage that, it crawls the internet to flag any sites containing harmful programs, such as malware, phishing content, or illegal pharma content.

These sites can prove to be dangerous for users because they could trick visitors into sharing their personal or financial information, unknowingly download malware, steal their data, or use social engineering tactics to gain access to digital spaces. 

Given that these consequences can be severe, Google does not tolerate any sign of harmful content on a website. Your site was blacklisted as a result of Google identifying the malware on your website as dangerous for its users.

Impact of “the site ahead contains malware red screen” on your WordPress site

The impact of a Google warning on your WordPress site is disastrous. However, most people don’t realize the full extent of these warnings’ consequences. Beyond the immediate effect on organic traffic, warnings like these can profoundly impact your website and your visitors:

• Loss of traffic
• Revenue loss
• Brand image takes a hit
• Loss of customer trust
• Data loss
• SEO rankings will tank
• Legal issues arising out of privacy laws
• Clean up costs
• Damage control and PR costs

These consequences can add up and lead to severe losses for your business, as well as your visitors. Therefore, it is important to take malware very seriously and take proactive measures to avoid malware infections in the future.

Conclusion

‘The site ahead contains malware’ google chrome warning is one of the more stressful consequences of a hack. Especially since it is clearly visible to anyone who visits your website. This guide details the step-by-step measures that you can take to not only get rid of the malware but also remove the Google warning from your site. 

The easiest way to clean up your site is to use MalCare for a fast and reliable clean-up at the click of a button. And our team is always available to help you navigate the pitfalls of WordPress security, be it invisible symptoms or Google blacklist.

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