Receive the warning message “The site you are about to access contains harmful programs” or “The website you are about to access is deceptive” can be frustrating for all website administrators, as this problem often recurs even after removing malware from the website.
But don’t fall into despair just yet. This article will help you find out why this issue occurs and provide a step-by-step guide on how to fix it using a simple method.
What is the “The website you are about to access is deceptive” error?
In most cases, the “The website you are about to access is deceptive” error indicates that your website has been attacked in one way or another. Someone may have found what is commonly known as a backdoor to your website, and is taking advantage of it to bypass site security.
Usually, this vulnerability comes from outdated external plugins or themes. Therefore, it is crucial to perform regular updates to prevent any potential situation in the future.
It may also be that malware has spread on your website. Google will detect your website as suspicious and unsafe, and will flag it or display a warning screen.
Other causes that trigger the error «The website you are going to access is misleading» are low-quality ads, which mostly contain harmful code or infected links. To solve this problem, Google has created the . You can use it to scan your website, or any other website, for harmful code or viruses.
In fact, the error “misleading site ahead» can also take the form of different warning messages. For example, “This page is trying to load scripts from unauthenticated sources“, either “The following site contains dangerous programs«.
How to fix “The website you are about to access is deceptive” error in WordPress?
Now that you know the causes of the error «misleading site«, we will learn how to fix it. However, before you start, do not forget not to take risks.
1. Find the cause of the problem
Finding the source of the problem couldn’t be easier with the help of website scanning tools. Here we present some of them.
Use Sucuri
is a free malware scanner that takes care of looking for infected files on your website.
- Go to the Sucuri page.
- Enter the URL of your website and press the button Scan Website.
- On the report page, review the infected files and follow the recommendations to fix them.
If your website is infected with malware, we have found the cause of «The site you are about to access contains harmful programs«. If that’s the case, you have to restore your malware-free WordPress files using ‘s hPanel:
- In hPanel, go to Files -> Backups. In File backupsclick Select.
- From the drop-down menu, select the date of the copy you want to download and click prepare to download.
- After a few seconds, you will receive a notification to download the backup. Click on it.
- Delete the files infected with the malware and replace them with the ones from the backup.
To restore the database, you can download a backup in the section Database backups and follow the steps below.
- now go to Databases -> PHP My Admin.
- Select the database where you want to restore the files by pressing the button Login to phpMyAdmin.
- Choose Import -> Select Files and locate the backup file you have saved. If the file format is .zipextract it before uploading it.
- Select the SQL file and press Continue.
Alternatively, you can also manually remove malware and infected files from hPanel. However, this method can only temporarily resolve the error «The site you are about to access contains harmful programs«.
Use word fence
Another solution to fix this error is to use a security plugin. This time we recommend you to use Wordfence, a security plugin that allows you to do security scans to find harmful files and even replaces infected files with clean ones. You simply have to download and install Wordfence from or from the official WordPress directory. When the installation is complete select “Scan” and wait for the plugin to do its job.
2. Submit your website for reconsideration
The only thing left to do for now is ask Google to review your site to see that it has been cleaned up. You can do this by adding your site to the Google Webmaster Tools Console:
- First of all, visit and sign in with your Google account. When you are inside, enter the address of your site and press the button «Add a property«.
- Google will ask you to verify ownership of the site. There are several ways to do this, but the most common is to download an HTML document to your computer:
- Now you have to upload that document to your hosting, to the directory where WordPress is installed, which is normally public_html. At you can do it using the file manager.
- Now head back to Google Search Console and hit the “verify”. If you successfully uploaded the file, you should now see a success message.
Once you’ve added your site you can review the security of your site and then ask Google to review it in the «security issues»
When this review is complete, your site should finally be rid of the infamous “EThe website you are going to access is misleading»
conclusion
In this tutorial we discuss some common causes of the error «The site you are about to access contains harmful programs» and explained 2 methods to solve it:
- Using a security service like Sucuri to find infected files and manually delete them or restore a backup.
- Using a WordPress plugin like Wordfence.
By following these steps you can get rid of this annoying error once and for all, and get your WordPress site fully functional again. To find more useful guides visit our .
Gustavo is passionate about creating websites. He focuses on the application of SEO strategies at for Spain and Latin America, as well as the creation of high-level content. When he is not applying new WordPress tricks you can find him playing the guitar, traveling or taking an online course.
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