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.
SERP Hijacking/Content Theft/ 302 Redirect?
-
Sorry for the second post, thought this should have it's own.
Here is the problem I am facing amongst many others.
Let's take the search term "Air Jordan Release Dates 2017" and place it into Google Search. Here is a link:
https://www.google.com/#q=air+jordan+release+dates+2017Towards the bottom of the page, you will see a website that has SneakerFiles (my website) in the title. The exact title is: Air Jordan Release Dates 2016, 2017 | SneakerFiles - Osce
Now, this is my content, but not my website. For some reason, Google thinks this is my site. If you click on the link in search, it automatically redirects you to another page (maybe 302 redirect), but in the cache you can see it's mine:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qrVEUDE1t48J:www.osce.gob.pe/take_p_firm.asp%3F+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=usI have blocked the websites IP, disallowed my style.css to be used so it just shows a links without the style, still nothing.
I have submitted multiple google spam reports as well as feedback from search. At times, my page will return to the search but it gets replaced by this website.
I even filed a DMCA with Google, they declined it. I reached out to their Host and Domain register multiple times, never got a response.
The sad part about this, it's happening for other keywords, for example if you search "KD 9 Colorways", the first result is for my website but on another domain name (my website does rank 3rd for a different Tag page). The page I worked hard on keeping up to date.
I did notice this bit of javascript from the cloaked/hacked/serp hijacking website:
I disabled iFrames...(think this helps) so not sure how they are doing this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Note: I am using Wordpress if that means anything.
-
I have done everything you listed with the exception of a firewall.
Will the firewall actually prevent this from happening or just make it a bit more difficult? Can something like this also be installed on the server end?
-
This is the 15th time this month.
Check the site to make sure that it is hacked reported to the owner and if they do not respond reported to Google
Get a WAF
https://sucuri.net/website-firewall/signup
or
You need to file a digital millennium takedown act
http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/7255/defend-against-serp-hijacking-before-you-lose-your-rankings/
DMCA use
http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/dmca/
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/h30z9W_1eGY
https://medium.com/@Juha.Sompinmaeki/google-search-results-hijacked-ae1e5933a5fe#.5unhmuvsz
-
I have seen this before, it looks like <a class="attribute-value">http://www.osce.gob.pe</a> has been hacked, but you have said that you have tried contacting them to tell them they have been hacked. Looks like they are only showing google your scrapped content but redirecting everyone else ( its a broken redirect for me), i'm guessing the hacked site has a higher authority than your site and that is why its out ranking you. This seems to be a common trick for these guys to make a quick buck for a few weeks before google catches on whats going on an corrects the serps.
Maybe try reporting it on googles forums, maybe a mod will escalate it for you.
Keep us updated
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
-
Moz bar not working on https://www.fitness-china.com/gym-equipment-names-pictures-prices
Moz bar not working on our website about gym equipment names https://www.fitness-china.com/gym-equipment-names-pictures-prices How long fix it?
On-Page Optimization | | ahislop5740 -
Duplicate content in sidebar
Hi guys. So I have a few sentences (about 50 words) of duplicate content across all pages of my website (this is a repeatable text in sidebar). Each page of my website contains about 1300 words (unique content) in total, and 50 words of duplicate content in sidebar. Does having a duplicate content of this length in sidebar affect the rankings of my website in any way? Thank you so much for your replies.
On-Page Optimization | | AslanBarselinov1 -
Canonical: Same content but different countries
I'm building a website that has content made for specific countries. The url format is: MyWebsite.com/<country name="">/</country> Some of the pages for <specific url="">are the same for different countries, the <specific url="">would be the same as well. The only difference would be the <country name="">.</country></specific></specific> How do I deal with canonical issues to avoid Google thinking I'm presenting the same content?
On-Page Optimization | | newbyguy0 -
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
Updating Old Content at Scale - Any Danger from a Google Penalty/Spam Perspective?
We've read a lot about the power of updating old content (making it more relevant for today, finding other ways to add value to it) and republishing (Here I mean changing the publish date from the original publish date to today's date - not publishing on other sites). I'm wondering if there is any danger of doing this at scale (designating a few months out of the year where we don't publish brand-new content but instead focus on taking our old blog posts, updating them, and changing the publish date - ~15 posts/month). We have a huge archive of old posts we believe we can add value to and publish anew to benefit our community/organic traffic visitors. It seems like we could add a lot of value to readers by doing this, but I'm a little worried this might somehow be seen by Google as manipulative/spammy/something that could otherwise get us in trouble. Does anyone have experience doing this or have thoughts on whether this might somehow be dangerous to do? Thanks Moz community!
On-Page Optimization | | paulz9990 -
Meta descriptions for subpages in the SERPs
Hey Mozzers! Something occurred to me the other day was that, while we can write title tags and meta descriptions to be within the character count and therefore appear nice and neatly in the SERPs, when Google et al decide to pull subpages out as further site links, it seems to still pull the normal meta description but with a far lower character count. As this looks untidy and could potentially impact CTR, is there a way I can amend the preferred text for the shortened version, via Webmaster Tools, for example? Thanks in advance for your help! Nick.
On-Page Optimization | | themegroup0 -
Multilingual site with untranslated content
We are developing a site that will have several languages. There will be several thousand pages, the default language will be English. Several sections of the site will not be translated at first, so the main content will be in English but navigation/boilerplate will be translated. We have hreflang alternate tags set up for each individual page pointing to each of the other languages, eg in the English version we have: etc In the spanish version, we would point to the french version and the english version etc. My question is, is this sufficient to avoid a duplicate content penalty for google for the untranslated pages? I am aware that from a user perspective, having untranslated content is bad, but in this case it is unavoidable at first.
On-Page Optimization | | jorgeapartime0 -
Google Page Rank of my site has dropped from 4/10 to 3/10
Google Page rank of my website has been dropped after Panda Update. Can anyone help me out to tell me the possible reasons about the same. We have tried to make our website more lively and user friendly. We have indulged some graphics to make it more attractive. But it seems it backfired us. my site is http://www.myrealdata.com as well as Google page ranking of my Quickbooks hosting page has been dropped as well. It would be great if someone can help me out with expert suggestions.
On-Page Optimization | | SangeetaC1