Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Search Results Get Safer; AOL Edges Google: Page 2 of 2

Paid search results, in fact, remained about three times more dangerous than nonsponsored links: 8% of paid links were labeled risky by SiteAdvisor, compared to 3% of unpaid links. The results were similar to May's, when 8.5% of paid and 3.1% of "organic" links were tagged dangerous.

Other facts gleaned from the new SiteAdvisor report include twice the likelihood of a dangerous site in adult keyword searches than in nonadult, and a tripling in risk when searching for anything with the word "free." In Google's results, for example, 13.8% of all links obtained with a search containing the word were risky, compared with only 4.2% of all searches.

The November report can be found on the SiteAdvisor site.

McAfee SiteAdvisor recently expanded to offer a $19.99 Plus edition that includes a real-time link checker which sniffs out risky URLs embedded in e-mail and instant messages. A free version of the tool is still available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.