McAfee declares 4% of search results "risky"

The McAfee study indicates that 276 million searches could lead users to potentially harmful websites.

"With four out of five Web site visits starting with a search engine query, consumers are still exposed to hundreds of millions of risky searches per month," said Tim Dowling, vice president, Consumer Growth Initiatives, McAfee SiteAdvisor. "In fact, an active search engine user, one that performs more than 10 searches per day, is likely to visit a dangerous site at least once a day."

The best websites for so-called protected searches - those searches that link to the fewest risky sites - are AOL (2.9% risky), Google (3.4% risky) and Yahoo (5.4% risky). MSN (4.2% risky) and Ask.com (3.5% risky) were also included in the safest list.

With Sophos reporting more than 304,000 websites infected by malware, it is clear that marketers need to be aware of exactly what their websites are supporting. Ensuring that users won't be infected with spyware or malware is a huge benefit to marketers, who otherwise could lose users if it is learned which websites are spreading problems.

Tags: organic search, search marketing, search results