How to troubleshoot when Chrome shows a warning on your Matomo domain

If you ever find yourself with a warning from Google Safe Browsing on your Matomo domain, don’t panic. As Google uses AI to detect malicious sites, it can often result in false positives. This means that completely legitimate sites sometimes get incorrectly identified as potentially malicious. This is even more likely to happen with newer websites and those on low-cost shared hosting servers where the same IP is shared by many unrelated sites.

There are a few different variations of the warning message, but it will read along these lines:

Deceptive site ahead

Attackers on example.com com may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers, or credit cards).

To get Chrome’s highest level of security, turn on enhanced protection

Google Safe Browsing recently detected phishing on example.com. Phishing sites pretend to be other websites to trick you. You can report a detection problem or, if you understand the risks to your security, visit this unsafe site.

If you are sure there is no malicious software on your domain, especially if you only have Matomo installed, you can click the link to report a detection problem on the page itself.

Check Google Safe Browsing List Tool

Google provides a tool to check if your domain is on their Google Safe Browsing List. If you find a warning on your site, this is the first place to look for more information. You can check your websites status at the following link:

https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search

If there are no problems with your site, it will look something like this:

However, if you find that your website has been incorrectly flagged as a phishing site, then you can request a review at this link.

Check Google Search Console

Another option is to check Google Search Console if you have previously registered your site with the service. If there is a warning on your site, you should also see a warning within your Google Search Console dashboard. If this is the case, you can submit a review request directly within your dashboard.

Still flagged after submitting a request for review?

The amount of time it takes to remove the warning on your site can vary. We have heard reports of it taking hours, or even days in some cases for the manual review process. If you have tried all of the above and waited at least 72 hours, then please reach out to support so we can investigate further.