Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Ever seen a black hat SEO hack this sneaky?
-
A friend pointed out to me that a University site had been hacked and used to gain top Google rankings. But it was cloaked so that most users wouldn't notice the hack. Only Googlebot and visitors from Google SERPs for the spam keywords would see a hacked version.
See http://www.rypmarketing.com/blog/122-how-hackers-gained-an-easy-1-google-ranking-using-a-university-website.whtml (my blog) for screenshot and specifics.
I've dealt with hacks before, but nothing this evil and sneaky. Ever seen anything like this? This is not our client, but was just curious if others had seen a hack like this before.
-
I have seen stuff like that in the SERP's but the only experience I have of getting hacked is a bit different. I worked in-house for a large travel corporation a couple of years ago and whilst the company's site was fine, their very popular blog wasn't. I just started there and looked at the source code of the blog (for some reason nobody was ever checking that) and found that there were hundreds of links to porn and poker sites hidden by CSS. It was all down to the fact that the blog was on Wordpress and hadn't been updated for a while.
Other than that, we've had sites we host hacked a few times, from hidden links to malware on the sites which of course produced warnings in the browsers. Again, all down to not keeping up with security patches and other updates. I learnt some lessons there.
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
-
Hiding Elements on Mobile. Will this effect SEO.
Hey guys and gals, I am hiding elements with @media sizes on the mobile experience for this site. http://prepacademyschools.org/ My question is when hiding elements from mobile, will this have a negative effect on rankings for mobile and or desktop? Right now it is a hero banner and testimonial. My interest is because I feel responsive is now working against conversions when it comes to mobile because desktop typically has the same info several times where mobile it can be repetitive and only needed once. Thanks,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | brightvessel1 -
Does type of hosting affect SEO rankings?
Hello, I was wondering if hosting on shared, versus VPS, versus dedicated ... matter at all in terms of the rankings of Web sites ... given that all other factors would be exactly equal. I know this is a big question with many variables, but mainly I am wondering if, for example, it is more the risk of resource usage which may take a site down if too much traffic and therefore make it un-crawlable if it happens at the moment that a bot is trying to index the site (factoring out the UX of a downed site). Any and all comments are greatly appreciated! Best regards,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | uworlds
Mark0 -
Best URL structure for SEO for Malaysian/Singapore site on .com.au domain
Hi there I know ideally i need a .my or .sg domain, however i dont have time to do this in the interim so what would be the best way to host Malaysian content on a www.domainname.com.au website? www.domainname.com.au/en-MY
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IsaCleanse
www.domainname.com.au/MY
domainname.com.au/malaysia
malaysia.domainname.com.au
my.domainname.com.au Im assuming this cant make the .com.au site look spammy but thought I'd ask just to be safe? Thanks in advance! 🙂0 -
Bad for SEO to have two very similar websites on the same server?
Is it bad for SEO to have two very similar sites on the same server? What's the best way to set this up?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Black Hat SEO Case Study - Private Link Network - How is this still working?
I have been studying my competitor's link building strategies and one guy (affiliate) in particular really caught my attention. He has been using a strategy that has been working really well for the past six months or so. How well? He owns about 80% of search results for highly competitive keywords, in multiple industries, that add up to about 200,000 searches per month in total. As far as I can tell it's a private link network. Using Ahref and Open Site Explorer, I found out that he owns 1000s of bought domains, all linking to his sites. Recently, all he's been doing is essentially buying high pr domains, redesigning the site and adding new content to rank for his keywords. I reported his link-wheel scheme to Google and posted a message on the webmaster forum - no luck there. So I'm wondering how is he getting away with this? Isn't Google's algorithm sophisticated enough to catch something as obvious as this? Everyone preaches about White Hat SEO, but how can honest marketers/SEOs compete with guys like him? Any thoughts would be very helpful. I can include some of the reports I've gathered if anyone is interested to study this further. thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | howardd0 -
href="#" and href="javascript.void()" links. Is there a difference SEO wise?
I am currently working a site re-design and we are looking at if href="#" and href="javascript.void()" have an impact on the site? We were initially looking at getting the links per page down but I am thinking that rel=nofollow is the best method for this. Anyone had any experience with this? Thanks in advanced
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | clickermediainc0 -
Does posting on Craigslist damage our SEO or reuptation?
We have a website that's a single person barbershop. She has been promoting on Craigslist, and that is outranking the website in the SERPs. However, the craigslist results showing up are actually expired and don't link to anything. They just seem to be cached by Craigslist. My question is, is Craigslist considered to generally not be a good avenue for directing inbound links for services on your site? Or is it a good strategy to use Craigslist to build link traffic for service businesses? I get mixed responses when I search for this. Thanks eYtdHtg.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smallpotatoes0 -
Rollover design & SEO
After reading this article http://www.seomoz.org/blog/designing-for-seo some questions came up from my developers. In the article it says "One potential solution to this problem is a mouse-over. Initially when viewed, the panel will look as it does on the left hand side (exactly as the designer want it), yet when a user rolls over the image the panel changes into what you see on the right hand side (exactly what the SEO wants)." My developers say" Having text in the rollovers is almost like hiding text and everyone knows in SEO that you should never hide text. "In the article he explains that it is not hidden text since its visible & readable by the engines.What are everyone's thoughts on this? Completely acceptable or iffy?Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DCochrane0