• by Susan Kuchinskas , September 30, 2008

What happens when a sex-advice site gets ... infected? During the last two weeks of August, the first listing when you Googled "Dr. Ruth" was DrRuth.com. "Get some!" the search result said invitingly. "Dr. Ruth's personal website. Features her biography, products, recommendations, and relationship advice. From sexuality to sex tips, better sex is only a click away."

But Google warned, "This site may harm your computer." No kidding. According to Google, its crawl showed that 263 pages on DrRuth.com surreptitiously installed malware, including 338 different (talk about appropriate naming) Trojans.
This is a problem for the Dr. Ruth brand, because Google is the search engine used for 71 percent of all searches, according to Hitwise. Yahoo Search did better, delivering the correct site as the top result, sans the warning, but it described the site incorrectly as Dr. Ruth's sex column on iVillage. On Windows Live Search, the official site was nowhere to be found.

Too bad Dr. Ruth has neglected her digital hygiene, in addition to her SEO. When OMMA contacted her press rep for comment, he responded, "Thanks for letting us know." Now they can seek treatment.