McAfee SiteAdvisor just released a report about the risk on searching to yahoo that about 5.4 percent of search coming from yahoo can end up into malicious or risky link results.  This is also according to the post and report at zdnet security.

Classification based on color codes where link results are marked with yellow or red. Where sites colored “red” determines that the link result on yahoo did not passed the test validation by the SiteAdvisor.  Most of the “red” flag results are those site having malicious codes, adware, or spam generated and harvesters site. Another site classification are those with “yellow” colored links, where these are the links or site results that sends high volume of “non-spammy” emails and other sites with too many pop ups.

Another issue is that most of those percentage of risk link are from sponsored search compared to the the normal or organic search results on most search engines. This is normal since, these sites are willing to pay for those sponsored searches and gaining much more with those adware and pop-ups and other make money online schemes they are promoting. But good thing is that, Yahoo organic search has gained its highest quality rating and safety from the report of McAfee SiteAdvisor compared to the the others.

This would mean of course for those sponsored search advertisers lowering their chance of leveraging their sales. And not a good sign on their business. Who else will click those sponsored search if they do put you on risk and your personal computers full of malware and adware?