I am running on Matomo 4.13.0.
A couple of days ago all my websites that I track started getting a red screen saying “Deceptive site ahead”. By removing the Wordpress Matomo plugin the site was ok.
I am self hosting Matomo as a subdomain on my Plesk server. That subdomain still has the problem with the red screen.
If I use any other browser everything is fine.
Is any body else having this problem and what is the solution?
Googling on the error message “Deceptive site ahead” shows several hints for fixing the issue.
I saw for example that some WP themes could be the reason of such a ranking…
I finally fixed this. Google had flagged my Matomo server as a phishing site even though Matomo is the only thing that runs on the site and the site is clean. The result of them flagging the Matomo server is that ALL my sites that are connected to Matomo would come up with the red screen. I requested that Google unflag my Matomo server. While I waited I had to deactivate wp-matomo on all my sites. A couple of days later Google said that they had approved my Matomo server. I then had to go back into all my sites and activated wp-matomo and the plugin connected without a problem. A lot of extra work!
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Well another update. Google has again flagged my Matomo server as bad. They just said it was ok 3 days ago. This is really frustrating.
Hi,
This seems to become more often…
See:
Hi Michael,
I’m experiencing the same issue with this and your thread is the only one I can find online related to Matomo installation.
How can you report it through Google? via Google Search Console? Or if there’s any other way?
And I read another update from you that said suddenly Google still flagged your Matomo server again after they said they approved them. Do you resolve it in the end?
Regards,
Yoan
Hi Sandro,
I’m having the same issue.
I install matomo to track many sites (some in EU as well) and get this problem.
Did you find ways to resolve this? or is there another alternative for GA4 that won’t be flagged by Google?
Regards,
Yoan
I have this problem too. It has happened twice. Luckily it happened right away or else I would have put the code on my cleints’ sites and that would not have gone well.
I did switch my server from one domain to another, but right after switching I had no problem. I originally ran up the servers with matomo on premise and immediately got the red screen of death. I submitted the review request through GSC and a day later the red screen was gone. It stayed gone for about three weeks during which time I was super hesitant to use it on any sites. After about three weeks I switch domains and it was still working fine. Then just yesterday after five or six weeks of the initial server creation I got the red screen again.
I have submitted a review request to GSC again and we’ll see what happens.
However after all this I don’t see a way to use this without a server to server implementation so my client sites can be guaranteed to not be impacted.
Good luck all!
Just had this same thing.
New server. It had only been tracking visits for 30mins, then went red.
Removed tracking code, and the tracked sites were fine, but the site hoisting Matomo still red. Have submitted report.
Out of interest, was anyone else running the Google analytics import plugin at the time?
I noticed on the report in search console. It listed the root domain, but also matomo/index.php?module=GoogleAnalyticsImporter&action=processAuthCode.
From reading around, lots of people have had similar issue running apps with login pages.
Has anyone tried putting the whole install behind a firewall, restricting access to all but your own ip, but allowing the api through?
Après un mois sans soucis sur une installation sur serveur, la RED Page Google est arrivée, bloquant 10 sites connectés à Matomo.
Après désactivation de Matomo sur les 10 sites, plus d’analytics.
Le serveur ou seul est installé matomo est bloqué par Google même après validation du non fishing…
Toute solution bienvenue.
Did you try ? Sounds good…
same issue here as well. 
Hey Sion2, yep same here - I’m running the google analytics import plugin.
I think I un-did all the changes that I made today, yet my website still shows the red screen of death. I’ll wait until tomorrow and then contact google support. I’ll be re-adding pieces slowly to figure out exactly which piece caused this.
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And I had the same problem. Is it google getting rid of competitors?
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Thank you for the solution.
Worked fine, except that if I go in maintenance mode I can’t access the admin console and I can’t see the tracked data.
If I may ask, what was your robots.txt configuration that didn’t work?
I don’t have the issue that you guys are mentioning but I am using Matomo self-hosted on a domain to track multiple domains.
None of the domains I am tracking is showing the deceptive error message.
But as per what @heurteph-ei said:
I checked the github page above:
Findus23 commented Jan 21, 2023
This looks a lot like your Matomo domain is on the google safe browsing list.
You can check here:
https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/searchAnd report an incorrectly blocked site here:
https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_error/?hl=en
and ran my site(s) through https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search and got no error status back on them.
Maybe this is also a way to check if the flag error went away after submitting the review to Google.
From the looks of it, at least from my point of view, seems to be a server IP issue, maybe the IP was flagged (if you are using shared hosting I’d exclude for the IP to be flagged).
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Same issue here. Interested to find out why Google flags these as deceptive.
Is it because of something in the Matomo web interface, and therefore all instances are likely to get flagged? (Google Search Console reported that the index.php URL was flagged)
Or is it because the tracking code tracks sensitive information?
If it’s very common, maybe it should be part of the installation / setup instructions to set up Google Search Console to monitor it.
HI there,
I have the same probleme of the red page with my matomo sub domain
So finally what is the solution please ? I have already reported the problem on this page a few hours ago https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_error/?hl=en but with no effect
Tks for your help.
What do you mean by “Google Search Console reported that the index.php URL was flagged”? Do you mean Google Search Console shows a flagged URL index.php as a notification or where in GSC?
How would you add in Google Search Console a single URL? do you mean adding it in the xml sitemap?
Do 2 Tests if possible:
- on a separate second domain, same hosting, with matomo as your subdomain for that separate second domain.
If you are getting flagged on this second domain as well, maybe it is the hosting IP that gets flagged - just my hutch.
- on a separate third domain, Different hosting, with matomo as your subdomain for that third domain.
If you are getting flagged on this one as well, then Matomo might be the issue.
If you are not getting flagged on this third domain, then it means it is your Hosting server IP getting flagged (as you’d prove that the only difference between them is the separate hosting).
Please let us know how you go : )