Google has begun warning users when they are about to visit a potentially harmful website.

Users clicking on a Google search results link that might take them to a website that hosts spyware or other malicious programs will get a warning from Google, the BBC reports. The effort is part of a larger initiative - StopBadware.org - launched early this year to catalog "badware." The warnings will pop up when someone using the search engine clicks on a link to a site identified as harmful by the coalition, which is funded by Google, Lenovo and Sun.

"These warnings currently link to a general page on StopBadware.org, but as we finish researching sites, we'll replace the general page with one of our individual website reports (see an example here)," according to a note on the coalition's site.

The warning suggests that users try a different site, but if they so choose they can go on to visit the potentially dangerous site.