Why was Lucire blacklisted by Google for six days?

Here’s a quick Q&A about the Google blacklisting this month.

Was Lucire hacked?
No. Our ad server was hacked, but our web team deleted all instances of the hack within hours on April 6. Everything was totally sewn up. In fact, Google itself gave our ad server domain the all-clear on April 6. For some reason, it wouldn’t give it to any other site that was linked to it.

Was I ever in danger of getting malware?
Only for those few hours on April 6, but if you have up-to-date antivirus, you should have been fine.

What code was put in?
We know the code directed people to another website where there was some kind of malicious software, but Google’s name is actually all over that code, too. You can judge for yourself in the third entry at this link.

Why did Google blacklist you for so long then?
This is the mystery. One expert tells us that Google reviews sites in five hours. Maybe it’s actually five days.
   The most innocent explanation is that Google’s malware bot doesn’t pick up the latest pages, but keeps reading old code. We brought this up in the Google forums, and that’s what they kept seeing internally. We’ve had our experts go through the site, we’ve had Sucuri go through the site, and we’ve had StopBadware.org go through the site. Everyone has cleared us. No one has ever been able to see the malware code since our techs cleared it. Even the Google forum level 12 volunteer could not understand why Google kept boycotting us from its search results, and why Google told everyone that we were dirty.
   The less innocent explanation is that Google’s bot is corrupt. Google itself created code to spy on Apple Iphone users last year, which we expect its own bot did not pick up. So it seems that if Google makes malware, it’s OK.


Falsely accused We’re getting pretty sick of seeing these for three consecutive days when there is nothing wrong with our site.

We are clean So weird. There are these pages blocking our site, saying we have malware—but the pages that supposedly make these accusations give us the all-clear.

A lot of livin’ to do

Not only is Lucire running some of the most comprehensive articles on New Zealand Fashion Week, thanks to Sopheak Seng, Matthew Beveridge, Nikita Brown, and Greg Jennings, but New York co-editor Joseph Ungoco is live-Tweeting from the Lucire Twitter account, and we have a live stream from New York Fashion Week that runs when the shows are on. Oh, and did we mention the Ipad and Android tablet editions are out?


Lucire for Iphone, Ipad, Ipod Touch and Android, now available

Click here to download image of Lucire cover

We’re delighted to announce that Ipad, Ipod Touch, Iphone and Android users can now get Lucire! There’s a page with more info here; meanwhile, you can head directly to the Apple App Store to download the Magzter app, or visit Google Play for the Android app.


Chrome users blocked in June Apparently, for the last while (say the seven days before yesterday), this is what Chrome users saw when trying to access a news page at Lucire. We want to assure readers that this is down to Google and Chrome being far, far too oversensitive. Readers were never in danger of any malicious software when visiting our site and we ourselves monitor it closely, especially the advertisements that come through. The only file from Blogarama that was present was a GIF image, though, given that no one using Chrome could read Lucire for a week, we have since removed it.

Selling Amy You’ve got to hand it to Google for running the right ads sometimes. Run a story mentioning Amy Winehouse, get Amy Winehouse ads.

Lucire hits the century on Google News Thank you to the team for getting 100 articles up in a month! Given the size of our team, I think this is remarkable—especially considering our first online issue lasted two months (October–December 1997).—Jack Yan

We’ve crossed 90 now Can we make the century in a month on Google News?

The bigger the story, the more likely Google News will muck up the headline We love Google News and think it’s one of the company’s best products. It’s just annoying that, often, it will muck up the headlines of our biggest stories of the week. The minor ones all come through accurately.

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