My site was hacked and spammy URLs were injected that pointed out. The issue was fixed, but GWT is still reporting more of these links.
-
Excuse me for posting this here, I wasn't having much luck going through GWT support.
We recently moved our eCommerce site to a new server and in the process the site was hacked. Spammy URLs were injected in, all of which were pointing outwards to some spammy eCommerce retail stores. I removed ~4,000 of these links, but more continue to pile in. As you can see, there are now over 20,000 of these links. Note that our server support team does not see these links anywhere.
I understand that Google doesn't generally view this as a problem. But is that true given my circumstance? I cannot imagine that 20,000 new, senseless 404's can be healthy for my website.
If I can't get a good response here, would anyone know of a direct Google support email or number I can use for this issue?
-
Hi
Yeah, lets say they use Xrumer.
They hack your site, insert pages of their own, and links on your pages.
They put those urls in text files based on their keyword targets/groups.
They run the software, using those list with their link sources and using their auto insert random url template.
So that pings a 404 to GWT so the 404 shows up there.
If these are pros, they already know that the pages are dead by now, as they confirm links after each run. It just takes a bit more time for GWMT to get notified so you'll see them trickle in.
So you'll see those 404 pages getting links from different dates.
Hope that helps
-
I don't understand why more spam links would be coming in though. Is it because the spam network doesn't realize that I've removed the injected pages? In other words, are they unknowingly linking to 404s?
-
Since those URLs are already gone after you cleaned it up, you can just mark those as fixed. GWT usually is pretty late with picking those up. I've handled my share of hacked sites, some with invisible links.
If they appear again, then you'll need to find where they are getting through. It's a pain but you have to fully check your files for scripts and encrypted codes.
Aside from those, it's just time. Google will eventually stop showing them.
Good luck Andrew!
PS. You might want to look at some of your pages using Google's cache result. You can see invisible links using that. Just in case you haven't done this part.
-
Thank you for your response.
I also believe I was hacked through my wordpress. What exactly did you do once you realized the htaccess file was changed? Did you change it back to whatever code was there before?
I already submitted a reconsideration request to Google and it was successful. I no longer have "this site may be hacked" in the SERPs, but I still have thousands of urls pointing to 404 pages.
-
-
Samething happened to me a last month due to a securrity break in a pluggin that was part of my wordpress theme.
After hacked the site with injected url and also altering htaccess file (check that out) they changed the htacces file in order that if you enter your url you could see the correct version of your web, but if you enter your website in a google search traffic wen to this spammy viagra stuff pages.
I also recieved a manual action on my site.
What i did:
1- removed the injected files that were creating the spammy urls
2- edited the htacces file locating what code they had changed
3- summited a reconsideration request explaining what it was happening
4- Removed on webmaster tools al url that were spammy created on my site to remove them from google index
After 10 days manual action was removed. But till know i still have spammy links to 404 on my site. This happens because they also hacked other sites and creates like spammy linking networks. Has people start recovering their sites the amount of links to this pages will reduce.
My experience this big amount on 404 it has affected on about 30% of traffic. This traffic has know recovered almost completly and the amount on 404 is reducing with time.
So my conclusion is that this 404 are not healthy but they will be gone with time and your site will recover.
-
Ha, sorry about the initial test post. It wasn't publishing on my main computer at first.
-
Can you please be more specific.
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
-
Woocommerce URL Structure Issue
Hi everyone ! To put you in context, I am doing an audit on an E-Commerce site selling auto parts with WooCommerce. I have some concerns regarding the url structure and here's why: Product category page url: /auto/drivetrain/cv-axle-shaft-assembly/
Technical SEO | | alexrbrg
Product page url included in the product category page: /product/acura-integra-cv-axle-shaft-90-01-honda-civic/ The way I see my situation is that the product page is considered by Google as an intern link and not as a page included in in the subfolder of the category page. 1. Am I right?
2. If yes, is there a solution to fix the issue with woocommerce to improve the category page ranking ? Thanks y'all !0 -
If a URL canonically points to another link, is that URL indexed?
Hi, I have two URL both talking about keyword phrase 'counting aggregated cells' The first URL has canonical link pointing to the second URL, but if one searches for 'counting aggregated cells' both URLs are shown in the results. The first URL is the pdf, and i need only second URL (the landing page) to be shown in the search results. The canonical links should tell Google which URL to index, i don't understand why both URLs are present in search results? Is 'noindex' for the first URL only solution? I am using Yoast SEO for my website. Thank you for the answers.
Technical SEO | | Chemometec0 -
150+ Pages of URL Parameters - Mass Duplicate Content Issue?
Hi we run a large e-commerce site and while doing some checking through GWT we came across these URL parameters and are now wondering if we have a duplicate content issue. If so, we are wodnering what is the best way to fix them, is this a task with GWT or a Rel:Canonical task? Many of the urls are driven from the filters in our category pages and are coming up like this: page04%3Fpage04%3Fpage04%3Fpage04%3F (See the image for more). Does anyone know if these links are duplicate content and if so how should we handle them? Richard I7SKvHS
Technical SEO | | Richard-Kitmondo0 -
One URL To All Sites, How Can I Avoid ?
I am using EMD and have an only 1 page which is the main url. Now my question is how can i avoid the penalty of submitting the same URL to the different platform like Web2.0, Article Directory etc. Please help.
Technical SEO | | seodadoo5670 -
Adding parameters in URLs and linking to a page
Hi, Here's a fairly technical question: We would like to implement badge feature where linking websites using a badge would use urls such as: domain.com/page?state=texas&city=houston domain.com/page?state=neveda&city=lasvegas Important note: the parameter will change the information and layout of the page: domain.com/page Would those 2 urls above along with their extra parameters be considered the same page as domain.com/page by google's crawler? We're considering adding the parameter "state" and "city" to Google WMT url parameter tool to tel them who to handle those parameters. Any feedback or comments is appreciated! Thanks in advance. Martin
Technical SEO | | MartinH0 -
Old owners links pointing to new owners domain
We have a number of web sites. We recently acquired an excellent domain name, it happened to be owned by one of our competitors. Our competitor has a lot of web sites, each domain having a basic 5 page unoptimized site with one of those pages little more than a link farm. They have over three hundred domains with all but lets say 10 of them consisting of basic 5 page sites with a link "directory" on one of those pages. - the directory page is the same on every single site/domain. One of the links from that directory is going to our newly acquired domain and newly optimized web site. Being new to this, should this pose any kind of concern for us? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | PlasticCards0 -
Should I 301 redirect my country specific sites, or use them as linking root domains?
I have loveelectronics.co.uk, but I also own 10 other country code specific domains. I am short on links (i'm actually still setting up the website) and wondered that until i have country specific content, should I 301 redirect these websites to the homepage of my main site, or could I use them as links which would mean I have more linking root domains? Sorry if this is a beginner question, but it would be good to know so I can sort this.
Technical SEO | | jcarter0 -
Mask links with JS that point to noindex'ed paged
Hi, in an effort to prepare our page for the Panda we dramatically reduced the number of pages that can be indexed (from 100k down to 4k). All the remaining pages are being equipped with unique and valuable content. We still have the other pages around, since they represent searches with filter combination which we deem are less interesting to the majority of users (hence they are not indexed). So I am wondering if we should mask links to these non-indexed pages with JS, such that Link-Juice doesn't get lost to those. Currently the targeted pages are non-index via "noindex, follow" - we might de-index them with robots.txt though, if the "site:" query doesn't show improvements. Thanks, Sebastian
Technical SEO | | derderko0