McAfee WebAdvisor / SiteAdvisor red "suspicious site" blocklist
McAfee's reputation engine flagged the domain red for malware or bad-neighbor signals, warning or blocking visitors who use it.
What you see
This might be a dangerous site WebAdvisor blocked example.com because it may contain malicious content. McAfee SiteAdvisor rating: Red
What’s actually happening
Visitors running McAfee WebAdvisor (bundled with McAfee and Dell/HP machines) hit a red full-page warning or a red icon next to your link in search results. Your server is fine and other reputation services may rate you green, but McAfee's verdict is independent and its own. Traffic from McAfee users drops and you may get customer reports of a scary warning. The rating comes from McAfee's TrustedSource database, not from Google Safe Browsing or Microsoft SmartScreen, so it has to be cleared separately from those.
Common causes
- Actual malware, an injected redirect, or a malicious script on the site (very common after a CMS compromise) that McAfee's crawler detected
- Links to or from domains McAfee already considers risky, dragging your reputation down by association
- Risky or bundled downloads served from the domain (installers wrapped with adware, cracked-software bait)
- Sharing a server IP with spammy or malicious neighbors on cheap shared hosting, so the IP's bad reputation taints your domain
- Spammy SEO patterns, cloaking, or a sudden burst of outbound links that the heuristic reads as compromise
How to fix it
- Clean the site before you appealScan with Sucuri SiteCheck, Quttera, or your host's malware scanner, then remove injected code: check recently modified files, theme/plugin files, .htaccess redirects, and database content for injected scripts. McAfee will re-flag instantly if it re-crawls and the malware is still there, so cleaning comes first.
- Find and fix what tripped itLook at outbound links (hacked sites often inject hidden link farms), any user-uploaded or downloadable files, and whether you're on a shared IP with bad neighbors (ask your host; consider moving to a clean/dedicated IP if so). Close the actual hole, don't just delete the symptom.
- Submit for review at TrustedSourceGo to trustedsource.org/en/feedback/url, choose McAfee SiteAdvisor/WebAdvisor as the product, enter your URL, optionally suggest the correct category and add a note that the site is cleaned, and submit. Create an account first so you get a ticket ID and status emails.
- Wait out the review and re-checkMcAfee typically processes categorization requests in about 3-5 business days. Check the rating afterward at sitelookup.mcafee.com. If it's still red, your appeal note should point to a clean third-party scan result as evidence.
- Harden so it doesn't come backUpdate CMS core, themes, and plugins, rotate all admin and database passwords, remove unused plugins, and put a WAF (Cloudflare, Wordfence) in front. A re-infection means another red flag and another multi-day review.
Stop it recurring
Keep the CMS and plugins patched, run a malware scanner on a schedule, and avoid cheap shared IPs with unknown neighbors.