As you know, Friday of last week Google began labeling sites with this site may be compromised when a site was hacked. But why did Google start doing this?

In the past, hacked sites were simply removed from the Google index and the webmaster was sent a notice via Google Webmaster Tools and via email (when possible). Why did Google decide to leave the hacked site in the index but simply label it as being compromised?

That is the question asked by WebmasterWorld members and answered by Google’s Matt Cutts. Matt Cutts explained:

You see, a webmaster is more likely to see their site’s label in Google then look at their notifications in webmaster tools or trust an apparent email from Google about a site hack. The label in Google might encourage the webmaster to close the hack sooner than later.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.