Google Webmaster Tools - content keywords containing spam?
-
Hi all,
When I looked in Google Webmaster Tools today I found under the menu Google Index, Content Keywords, that the list is full of spammy keywords (E.g. Viagra (no. 1) and stuff like that)
Around april we built a whole new website, uploaded a new xml-sitemap, and did all the other things Google Webmaster Tools suggest when one is creating a Google Webmaster Account.
Under the menu "Security Issues" nothing is mentioned.
All together I find it har d to believe that the site is hacked - so WHY is Google finding these content keywords on our site??
Should I fear that this will harm my SEO efforts?
Best regards,
Christian
-
I've encountered the same issue on clients websites before. They had a wordpress site and as it turned out a hidden virus - that was showing different results to Google, than to users. So the virus couldn't be detected.
I ended up using this WP Plugin " Anti-Malware & Brute Force Security" to scan enter website. It should vulnerable files - which were removed everything cleaned up.
And as previous posters mentioned, Google/Sucuri may not see the malware know but when they do you're at risk of the site being blacklisted - so best to take care of it now.
hope that helps
-
Hi Henrik,
Has this issue been resolved? We'd love an update! Thanks.
Christy
-
Hi,
In the Search Analytics report could you put the filter on "Pages" rather than "Keywords" - and check if there are pages listed that seem suspicious to you?
Did you try "spammy keyword" site:yoursite.com in Google?
Recently there where quite some questions about wordpress sites that had been hacked - mainly caused by this vulnerability:
https://blog.sucuri.net/2014/09/slider-revolution-plugin-critical-vulnerability-being-exploited.html
or this one https://blog.sucuri.net/2014/12/revslider-vulnerability-leads-to-massive-wordpress-soaksoak-compromise.html
I guess that sucuri would normally detect this - but maybe you could doublecheck that you're not using these kind of slider on your site.
rgds,
Dirk
-
Hi Laura,
Thank you for your answer.
-
No comment spam.
-
No malware found using Sucuri
-
No problems found using site:example.com
(and the above is the reason why I am a surprised - I have never seen this before)
So ony reason I can think of is the old site was spammed/hacked and the new site is not...?
-
-
Hi Andy,
Thank you for your answer.
The site is build in Wordpress.
I have sent you a PM with my website (couldn't find your name, so I pm'ed iq SEO)
Best regards
-
Here's what I would look for:
- Comment spam - Do you have any visible comment spam on your website that includes these types of keywords? If so, remove it all.
- Malware - Some types of malware will create new pages on your site that you can't access through a simple crawl from your home page. Search "site:example.com" in Google, replacing "example.com" with your domain name. Go through all of the results to see if Google has any pages indexed for your site that you don't recognize.
Even if Google doesn't flag your site for malware, it may still be there. Look at the files on the server to see if there are new files that shouldn't be there. Scan your site at https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/ to see if anything comes up there.
If your site is infected with malware, Google will eventually find it and flag your site. Yes, it will certainly harm your SEO efforts.
-
Hi Christian,
It's a little difficult to say what might be going on without being able to actually see the site. You are welcome to PM me this or post it here and I will gladly take a look for you.
Should I fear that this will harm my SEO efforts? It all depends. If your site has indeed been hacked, you need to find out what has happened (and how it happened). What did you build the site in?
-Andy
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
-
Homepage optimized for main keyword - adding the same keyword to category
Hello, We have a listing / classified advertisement website. The homepage is optimized for the main keyword lets say Prague clubs. The homepage shows around 50 latest listings. Now the homepage is not ranking well for the keyword. (By not well i mean in 3 months we have no ranking in the target SERP) Im thinking the issue might be that the keyword "Prague clubs" is not in any of the URL or category names. What do you think if i name one of the categories also to lets say "best prague clubs". This way i will have around 50-80 urls having the target keyword in them. (advertisements + the category itself) Will this help or actually dilute the keyword? What you think?
Technical SEO | | advertisingtech0 -
Can you have 2 different websites on 1 webmaster tools account
Someone set up both our sites on the one webmaster tools account is this the best way to do it or should we have 2 different accounts. We are having problems with our site verification not working and our google shopping feeds not working could this be the cause.
Technical SEO | | CostumeD0 -
Links in Webmaster Tools that aren't really linking to us
I've noticed that there is a domain in WMT that Google says is linking to our domain from 173 different pages, but it actually isn't linking to us at all on ANY of those pages. The site is a business directory that seems to be automatically scraping business listings and adding them to hundreds of different categories. Low quality crap that I've disavowed just in case. I have hand checked a bunch of the pages that WMT is reporting with links to us by viewing source, but there's no links to us. I've also used crawlers to check for links, but they turn up nothing. The pages do, however, mention our brand name. I find this very odd that Google would report links to our site when there isn't actually links to our site. Has anyone else ever noticed something like this?
Technical SEO | | Philip-DiPatrizio0 -
Keyword Suggestions Tool & Different Subdomains
Hey all, Was reading Dan Shure's brilliant post on the Keyword Planner, and decided to plug a few of my own pages into the URL-suggester tool as well. What I got back was nothing short of strange. After plugging in our Features page, (which describes our Social Media Contesting Platform,) and getting back a bunch of suggestions related to Dr Seuss and Interior Design Scholarships, I realized that the Keyword Suggestion tool was being broken by our subdomains. I looked for precedent on my particular issue, but I think I might not be searching properly. Could anyone provide any insight into whether or not this might affect how spiders see the content on Strutta.com, whether or not this is just something that will affect the Keyword Suggestions Tool or actual SERP rankings, and if this content is already present elsewhere on MOZ, a link to said content? Much obliged 🙂
Technical SEO | | danny.wood0 -
Google not found errors in webmaster tool help
Hi, Google Webmaster tools sent me a few messages recently about the jump in the number of 'not found' errors. From 0 to 290 errors, ouch. I know what it's from but I think Google is seeing things. We developed another page/subdomain we're working on with links back to the root domain. Basically a complete list of articles page that lists each article and links back to the root domain. Not sure what Google is crawling but the links that would result in a 'not found' error aren't there. Will these disappear over time? Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | astahl110 -
Trying to get on Google page one for keyword "criminal defense attorney san diego". What can I do?
I'm trying to help a friend who is an attorney get on page one for the keyword "criminal defense attorney san diego." So far I've changed his title and description tags since they weren't optimized before. (SERP shows old title tag, however I submitted a XML sitemap through Webmaster tools to get the new title tags updated.) He also had a few duplicate pages, but I took care of that with some 301 redirects. I also added a h1 tag, alt image tag, and more content. I also spent a few hours building links for him. He currently has a page authority of 52 and domain authority of 44 with a decent amount of links pointing to his site. I'm wondering why he's stuck on page 4, when his competitors that have less impressive numbers seem to show up on page 1. I did look at his link profile using OSE and I'm worried that his old SEO guy got him spam links. His website is www.nasserilegal.com, however the page I was focusing on was www.nasserilegal.com/criminal.html Any advice would be great.
Technical SEO | | micasalucasa0 -
Description and Title keyword Not showing in Google SERP?
It appears our description and title have disappeared in Goggle and Bing search results. We currently did a update to Magento 1.7 and the robots.txt included this: User-agent: * Disallow: / But that is fixed in Google Webmaster tools and everything else looks good. Here is the site: http://www.oxygenconcentratorstore.com/ Any help would be awesome. Thanks. google_serp.jpg
Technical SEO | | chuck-layton0 -
Website disappeared from Google organic keyword searches.
We have an auto repair company as a client www.autorepairauroratilden.com who for the better part of a year their website had ruled the 1st page organic Google search results. Their website, Blogs, Facebook, and Twitter all came up on page one for their keyword searches. On May 13th, it all came to a screeching halt. The website is nowhere to be found for any of their keywords (example: brake repair Aurora.) There are a couple of blogs on page 2 but it’s nothing like it was prior to May 13th. On May 12th we published 5 branded websites for this client – Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Jeep, and Toyota, all on separate URL’s. All the page titles, keywords, and descriptions were specifically branded to the individual websites as were all the keywords. Since the beginning of June we’ve taken down the 5 branded websites and we’ve gone through our keywords on the auto repair website. The website was last crawled on June 11th. We still do not have any page 1 placement or for that matter any page placement. I checked 10 pages out. We have a 2nd auto repair client that has been running their website as well as their 5 branded websites a couple of months longer than this client and we’ve had no problems with any of their websites and keyword search results. How do we fix this?
Technical SEO | | markindenver0