Spamming and Wordpress
-
Hi,
I have a Wordpress site for which I was ranking #1 for my main key phrase. Then I noticed that my site had plummeted in ranking. Investigating I found the cause to be a hacking issue where my code has lots of content for and backlinks to Viagra sites! How do I best work on retrieving my ranking and making sure that the site in question gets penalized?
-
thanks, Paul.
I am testing the "Wordfence" plug-in, and I was able to identify (and delete) a malware file. I should probably look for a more secure host as well.
Cheers
Bo
-
This plugin is really helpful for protecting your site:
Once you clean up, it should gain rankings back.
-
A good idea would be to change your passwords on a monthly basis and maybe ask your hosting company to see if there is anything they can do to stop your site from being hacked. Also ask them if they have any data on when your site was hacked.
A good hosting company will help you keep your site secure
-
Just a heads-up Bo - and really sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but fixing a WordPress hack like you're describing is almost never as easy as just deleting the code you see in headers. Like on virus-infected desktop computers, the malware often hides an additional payload of crapware that is capable of regenerating the spam links after a designated time period.
There are a number of different WordPress scanning services like http://sucuri.net/, as well as security-scanning plugins available. Be sure to use a couple of them (no one tool catches everything) to make sure you site is actually clean. In addition, monitor it carefully and repeatedly for the next several weeks to make sure the malware doesn't surreptitiously re-assert itself.
Lastly, make certain you have changed all ftp passwords for your site's server and that you are using strong, complex passwords. This is an easy vector of attack that many webmasters forget to secure. If possible, you should be using sFTP (secure ftp) for any work on your site as it encrypts ftp passwords where regular ftp sends them in the clear and so is extremely easy to hack.
Paul
-
Hi,
thanks for sharing! I found the code in the Header and deleted everything, so hopefully that should take care of the "clean-up" process, so I can start on the "small matter" of regaining my ranking. I'm in 50th at the moment, so at least I'm indexed!
cheers
-
Hey Bo, just thought I'd chime in here. I had a client's site get some kind of nasty code injection - pharma stuff like you're talking about. Happened a month or so ago. He was #1 for his keyphrase also, but as soon as the site was compromised, he dropped to page 4-5. Soon as I re-did the site and got it live his rankings came back.
Sooo...bad news and good news. I highly doubt your site is actually de-indexed (good news). The bad news is the amount of work you'll have to do. I completely wiped the root folder, deleted the DB, and re-built the wordpress site from scratch on a different theme/framework.
-
hi, thanks for the advice!
I will check Webmaster tools, and send a description of the issue. I´m sure you´re right regarding the penalty issue, I guess I just have to tighten security...
-
Most usually, your rankings will come back once you clean your site up. I'd recommend letting go of thoughts regarding penalties to site in question. There's really nothing that the ordinary mortal can do that will make that happen and if there was something that could be done, they'd be up and running the next hour with another site (which probably already is up and running.)
The big take away is: keep your wordpress up to date, delete your admin account, and set up an account with another username with a strong password.
-
Is your site listed in google wmt? if so is there any messages.
Ask for re-consideration and explain what happened
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Squarespace or Wordpress for a Photographer
Hi, I was wondering if people would recommend squarespace or wordpress for a photographer. I'm mainly curious about how wordpress uses internal links for their images and squarespace images exist on http://static1.squarespace.com. Wouldn't a photographers website, one that focuses on images, be better on wordpress for this readson?
Technical SEO | | mattdinbrooklyn1 -
Wordpress tags and duplicate content?
I've seen a few other Q&A posts on this but I haven't found a complete answer. I read somewhere a while ago that you can use as many tags as you would like. I found that I rank for each tag I used. For example, I could rank for best night clubs in san antonio, good best night clubs in san antonio, great best night clubs in san antonio, top best night clubs in san antonio, etc. However, I now see that I'm creating a ton of duplicate content. Is there any way to set a canonical tag on the tag pages to link back to the original post so that I still keep my rankings? Would future tags be ignored if I did this?
Technical SEO | | howlusa0 -
Should I wory about spam domains linking to me?
A while ago my site had a pharmacy hack done to it and created a ton of spam links. I've since fixed the issues on my site but I'm still showing links from their sites. See screen shot: http://awesomescreenshot.com/0497cc147 I think they are links from the spam site to me and not my site "yakanger" linking to them correct? Do I need to worry about these? Can I get rid of them?
Technical SEO | | mr_w2 -
Removing inbound Spam Links
Hello, Last February one of my clients websites was delisted. It turns out that some time ago that had attempted to launch a social network along time lines of ning. The project had fallen apart of the was still up. At some point spammers found it and started using it as part of a link farm. Once it was discovered, the subdomain it was posted on was removed and the website returned to search within 2 weeks. Last week, the website disappeared again OSE shows that in the last 2 months the website has got 2000 (There are about 16,000 total spam links) additional spam links now pointing and the root domain. On top of that, Google Webmaster Tools is reporting about 15,000 404 errors. I have blocked Google from crawling the path where the path were the spam pages used to be. If there a way to block the 1000s of inbound spam links?
Technical SEO | | Simple_Machines0 -
How do you manage Wordpress URL hierarchy with permalinks?
I have quite a few website in Wordpress but I continuously run into the same issue. With permalinks it is not recommended to use /%category%/%post_name%/ because it puts an undue load on your bandwidth, server and makes the crawler crawl a ton of duplicate content pages. On one site changing to that hierarchy even crashed some of the pages (probably a permissions error). I would like a correct information hierarchy, but this doesn't seem like correct play. What do you use as your URL hierarchy?
Technical SEO | | MarloSchneider
Do you have any plugins or fixes for this issue? Thanks0 -
WordPress Duplicate Content Issues
Everyone knows that WordPress has some duplicate content issues with tags, archive pages, category pages etc... My question is, how do you handle these issues? Is the smart strategy to use robots meta and add no follow/ no index category pages, archive pages tag pages etc? By doing this are you missing out on the additional internal links to your important pages from you category pages and tag pages? I hope this makes sense. Regards, Bill
Technical SEO | | wparlaman0 -
Duplicate canonical URLs in WordPress
Hi everyone, I'm driving myself insane trying to figure this one out and am hoping someone has more technical chops than I do. Here's the situation... I'm getting duplicate canonical tags on my pages and posts, one is inside of the WordPress SEO (plugin) commented section, and the other is elsewhere in the header. I am running the latest version of WordPress 3.1.3 and the Genesis framework. After doing some testing and adding the following filters to my functions.php: <code>remove_action('wp_head', 'genesis_canonical'); remove_action('wp_head', 'rel_canonical');</code> ... what I get is this: With the plugin active + NO "remove action" - duplicate canonical tags
Technical SEO | | robertdempsey
With the plugin disabled + NO "remove action" - a single canonical tag
With the plugin disabled + A "remove action" - no canonical tag I have tried using only one of these remove_actions at a time, and then combining them both. Regardless, as long as I have the plugin active I get duplicate canonical tags. Is this a bug in the plugin, perhaps somehow enabling the canonical functionality of WordPress? Thanks for your help everyone. Robert Dempsey0