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.
Pages mirrored on unknown websites (not just content, all the HTML)... blackhat I've never seen before.
-
Someone more expert than me could help... I am not a pro, just doing research on a website... Google Search Console shows many backlinks in pages under unknown domains... this pages are mirroring the pages of the linked website... clicking on a link on the mirror page leads to a spam page with link spam... The homepage of these unknown domain appear just fine... looks like that the domain is partially hijacked... WTF?!
Have you ever seen something likes this?
Can it be an outcome of a previous blackhat activity?
-
The links actually are just in some forms
-
Thanks everyone, I'll do more research and update all
-
One more thing that could be a long shot but is worth keeping an eye on: If someone had zero ethics and wanted to steal your links, one thing they could do is reach out to webmasters that link to you and pretend to be you, and claim that the mirror site is the new version of the website and ask them to change their links. Once complete, they'd redirect the mirror site to their own commercial site.
So, keep an eye on your own link profile and theirs, just to make sure none of those links are changing.
-
We see scraped content all the time. Occasionally we see scraped HTML in full form but slightly edited.
In general I'd do the following:
- Disavow those domains in GSC. Also consider disavowing any domains pointing links at the mirror sites. It could be possible that they are building up junk links to a mirror site which canonicals your site. No idea why anyone would do that but worth covering your bases.
- Submit DMCA notices to Google, their webhost, etc.
- Take a look through server logs for anything screwy. If you see tons of weird traffic from countries that aren't relevant to your business, you might decide to block them with your .htaccess file.
- Certainly make sure nothing has been changed on your own site (canonicals, common Wordpress hacks, etc.), though nothing is suggesting to me that that has happened.
Other than that I would just keep an eye on it and keep an eye on Google Search Console.
-
Hi,
From what I read it looks similar to these cases - https://moz.com/community/q/getting-different-search-queries-in-google-webmaster & http://moz.com/community/q/chinese-site-ranking-for-our-brand-name-possible-hack
In these cases - sites where hacked using a vulnerability in a Wordpress slider - they copied sites they wanted to target on to some of the hacked domains and used other hacked domains to point links to them. At that point they were trying to redirect traffic from genuine e-commerce sites to bogus ones.
You could try to contact the site owners & tell them they have been hacked. At the same time file a complaint @Google
rgds,
Dirk
-
Some basic scraping maybe common, but they have gone out of there way to backlink to you...
Have you checked there metrics on open site explore...? Checked whois?
-
As far as I know website scraping is not uncommon, apart from the backlinks
-
I am honest I am still a little puzzled. But if what you are describing is what is happening. Something very strange is going on. I have not heard of it before.
A totally different domain, that you did not build is linking to your site with the exact copy of a page that it is linked to. If that is the case, your site is being specifically targeted. Someone has to have gone out of there way to copy your site and then re-build it on a different domain.
This is what I would do:-
I would contacting google asap.
Can you find who owns the site on whois?
Check the wayback machine to find out what the site was previously
User open site explorer to track the nature of the links on the other domain. .
And wow... that is unbelievable if it is correct...
-
Yes, sorry but I thought that was clear from the beginning.
If I click to the console links I am directed to the mirrored page in these domains. That's exactly how I saw them, otherwise I coudn't discover them
-
That console part provides clickable links. So that goes back to my original question. Can you click through to the domain and see a mimic copy of your site? Or is it simply showing you a link that clicks to nothing?
-
In the console there is a section called (translating into English) "Links pointing to your site"
Traffic has not changed, in fact these do not appear in GA referrals.
I can see all these domains, either the mirrorer paged, or the actual genuine pages pertaining to them originally. You cannot reach the mirrored pages via the menu in hp
-
Where in google search console are they reported?
Also to be clear, nothing has happened to your site. ie traffic has not changed. However you have found "strange" links in search console? Which do not click through to anything?
Or as I am still not clear - have you found another domain, that mimics your site that you can actually see?
-
Exactly, I am confused too.
Indeed, Goole Search Console reports do list them, but I can't see them in the html
Instance, I find this
<form <span="" class="html-tag" data-mce-mark="1">id="search_mini_form" action="http://mydomain.ext/it/catalogsearch/result/" method="get">
and also images hosted in the scraped websites's domain
Also, these pages apparently are under these domains that in turn appear to be real websites equally unaware of the scam
</form>
-
I am a little confused.
Are you saying that an exact copy of a unique page you have created on your website is on another domain name (which you know nothing about) and then that site is linked to your site, ie via a backlink?
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
-
Robots.txt file in Shopify - Collection and Product Page Crawling Issue
Hi, I am working on one big eCommerce store which have more then 1000 Product. we just moved platform WP to Shopify getting noindex issue. when i check robots.txt i found below code which is very confusing for me. **I am not getting meaning of below tags.** Disallow: /collections/+ Disallow: /collections/%2B Disallow: /collections/%2b Disallow: /blogs/+ Disallow: /blogs/%2B Disallow: /blogs/%2b I can understand that my robots.txt disallows SEs to crawling and indexing my all product pages. ( collection/*+* ) Is this the query which is affecting the indexing product pages? Please explain me how this robots.txt work in shopify and once my page crawl and index by google.com then what is use of Disallow: Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Mar 27, 2018, 9:44 AM | HuptechWebseo0 -
Schema Markup for regular web pages?
I'm a bit confused about what Schema markup should be applied to such regular, informative web pages.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Jan 23, 2017, 5:30 PM | gray_jedi
We have a few pages describing our technology and solutions. These pages are not products or news articles. And they are not something that should be reviewed/rated. What Schema markup should be used for a standard run-of-the mill web page?
Is there a good reference / tutorial for optimizing the schema markup of an informational website? Any advice is much appreciated, thank you!0 -
Traffic exchange referral URL's
We have a client who once per month is being hit by easyihts4u.com and it is creating huge increases in their referrals. All the hits go to one page specifically. From the research we have done, this site and others like it, are not spam bots. We cannot understand how they choose sites to target and what good it does for them, or our client to have hits all on one days to one page? We created a filter in analytics to create what we think is a more accurate reflection of traffic. Should be block them at the server level as well?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Apr 14, 2016, 10:16 PM | Teamzig0 -
Ever seen this tactic when trying to get rid of bad backlinks?
I'm trying to get rid of a Google penalty, but one of the URLS is particularly bizarre. Here's the penalized site: http://www.travelexinsurance.com. One of the external links Google cited as not being natural that links to the penalized site is: http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 In the backlink profile of the penalized site, there are about 100 different backlinks pointing to www.travelexinsurance.com from content.onlineagency.com/... So when I visit http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 it actually is displaying content from http://www.starmandstravel.com/787115_6599.htm, which you can see after clicking the "Home" button. That company is a legit travel agency who I assume knows nothing about content.onlineagency.com and is not involved in whatever is going on. And that's the case for every link from content.onlineagency.com. So I'm just wondering if someone can help me understand what sort of tactic content.onlineagency.com is using. One of my predecessors I fear used some black hat tactics. I'm wondering if this is a remnant of that effort.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Nov 26, 2014, 7:56 PM | Patrick_G0 -
How to 301 redirect from old domain and their pages to new domain and pages?
Hi i am a real newbie to this and i hope for a guide on how to do this. I seen a few moz post and is quiet confusing hopefully somebody able to explain it in layman terms to me. I would like to 301 redirect this way, both website contain the same niche. oldwebsite.com > newwebsite.com and also its pages..... oldwebsite.com/test >newwebsite.com/test So my question here is i would like to host my old domain and its pages in my new website hosting in order to redirect to my new domain and its pages how do i do that? would my previous page link overwrite my new page link? or it add on the juice link? Do i need to host the whole old domain website into my new hosting in order to redirect the old pages? really confusing here, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Aug 21, 2014, 7:34 AM | andzon0 -
Unique page URLs and SEO titles
www.heartwavemedia.com / Wordpress / All in One SEO pack I understand Google values unique titles and content but I'm unclear as to the difference between changing the page url slug and the seo title. For example: I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About I've noticed some of my competitors using url structures more like "www.competitor.com/san-francisco-video-production-about" Would it be wise to follow their lead? Will my landing page rank higher if each subsequent page uses similar keyword packed, long tail url? Or is that considered black hat? If advisable, would a url structure that includes "san-francisco-video-production-_____" be seen as being to similar even if it varies by one word at the end? Furthermore, will I be penalized for using similar SEO descriptions ie. "San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Portfolio" and San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Contact" or is the difference of one word "portfolio" and "contact" sufficient to read as unique? Finally...am I making any sense? Any and all thoughts appreciated...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Jan 27, 2014, 8:23 PM | keeot0 -
Macrae's Blue Book Directory LIsting
Does anyone know more information about this directory? Is it a good quality directory that I should pay to get listed on?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Sep 16, 2013, 2:50 PM | EcomLkwd0 -
Starting every page title with the keyword
I've read everywhere that it's vital to get your target keyword to the front of the title that you're writing up. Taking into account that Google likes things looking natural I wanted to check if my writing title's like this for example: "Photographers Miami- Find the right Equipment and Accessories" ..Repeated for every page (maybe a page on photography in miami, one on videography in Orlando etc) is a smart way to write titles or if by clearly stacking keywords at the front of every title won't be as beneficial as other ways of doing it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Jun 20, 2013, 7:10 AM | xcyte0