Spam posts indexed, what to do now?
-
Hi,
So we had a staff problem last week and we let some spam posts (cheap nike jerseys etc.) that also got indexed by Google. (We just checked and there are lik 105 already indexed)
Of course we have now removed all these spam posts but what is the best practice at this point? Are we supposed to do something else to remove these from Google's index? (maybe through google webmaster tools?) We have already edited robots.txt to disallow those pages as a quick remedy.
And finally, could this have done any harm? We were quite slow noticing these posts to remove them. They were there for about 12 days.
thanks
-
Good to know
-
Hi,
Thanks for the comprehensive answer. We don't have any vulnerabilities. It was all my fault as I completely forgot that I had given administrative access to one of our former content managers who had temporarily allowed anonymous users to post on this certain section of the site. And once he left, we forgot to update that permission and never really noticed those posts, until today.
-
haha I just say you said "all those links had auto-nofollow on them"
NO PROBLEM MAN! rest easy! You cannot get penalized for nofollow links!
-
Thanks for the quick response. We're just requesting URL removal for all those URL's. I hope this makes it all good. No sign of ranking drop at the moment. We're lucky those pages were automatically filtered out by our sitemap.xml and all those links had auto-nofollow on them. Time to consider buying a service like Mollom I guess.
-
Do you know how the spam posts were published on your site? Just make sure the vulnerability is fixed so it doesn't happen again. Once the spam posts you found have been deleted from your site, you shouldn't have to do anything more since they will fall out of Google's index. Keep an eye on Google Webmaster Tools though to see if you notice any more spam pages pop up on Google's radar and then manually remove them.
Here is Google's official answer - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164734
When a page is updated or removed, it will automatically fall out of our search results. You don’t need to do anything to make this happen.
However, if you urgently need to remove content from Google's search results (for example, if you’ve already removed, updated, or blocked a page accidentally displaying confidential information like credit card numbers), you can request expedited removal of those URLs.
Our removal tools are intended for pages that urgently need to be removed—for example, if they contain confidential data that was accidentally exposed. Using the tools for other purposes may cause problems for your site.
Another Google resource if your site was actually hacked or compromised - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1269119
To take your site "offline" after being hacked. If your site was hacked and you want to get rid of bad URLs that got indexed, use the URL removal tool to remove any new URLs that the hacker created—for example, http://www.example.com/buy-cheap-cialis-skq3w598.html. But we don't recommend removing your entire site, or removing URLs that you'll eventually want indexed. Instead, clean up the hacking and let us recrawl your site.
-
So someone was posting articles on your site that linked to other sites like paid links?
If you removed the posts no need to block them in robots.txt because they no longer exist so will not get crawled anymore. Yes definitely request removal in WMT URL removal tool and get those pages out of Google's index ASAP.
You're probably OK. Just keep your fingers crossed and an eye on rankings and run a tight ship so that doesn't happen again, definitely something you can get penalized for. Good thing you caught it quickly.
EDIT: if you meant that you let spam comments get posted live/approved by the admin then all you can do is remove the spammy posts and make sure your comment settings are set to need admin approval before getting posed live. No need to block in robots.txt or remove URLs in that case but it doesn't hurt. If the links are off of your site you should be fine.
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
-
Indexing a catalogue
A client of mine has a large printed product catalogue that they post on their website as a pdf. Should I take a different approach of posting this catalogue in order to gain SEO value?
Technical SEO | | garymeld0 -
Dev Site Was Indexed By Google
Two of our dev sites(subdomains) were indexed by Google. They have since been made private once we found the problem. Should we take another step to remove the subdomain through robots.txt or just let it ride out? From what I understand, to remove the subdomain from Google we would verify the subdomain on GWT, then give the subdomain it's own robots.txt and disallow everything. Any advice is welcome, I just wanted to discuss this before making a decision.
Technical SEO | | ntsupply0 -
De-indexed from Google
Hi Search Experts! We are just launching a new site for a client with a completely new URL. The client can not provide any access details for their existing site. Any ideas how can we get the existing site de-indexed from Google? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | rikmon0 -
Instant Indexing
I've been working on a site for a while now, methodically building content and building trust and authority. Lately I've noticed that anything I publish there appears to be instantly indexed by Google, which surprises me. I haven't had this happen before so I'm curious. I'd be interested to hear the experience of others.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Crawling and indexing content
If a page element (div, e.g.) is initially hidden and shown only by a hover descriptor or Javascript call, will Google crawl and index it’s content?
Technical SEO | | Mont0 -
Syndicated Posts Not Ranking, Possible Solutions?
All, We used to allow users of our legal information site to syndicate content that was published in identical form on their blogs and, in some cases, other sites as well. No surprise that post-Panda, we're not ranking for those syndicated posts, they offer very little value. We still boast a very nice library of original content that drives traffic, however, I'm concerned that those lingering syndicated posts are bringing down our overall domain authority/credibility. Right now, syndicated posts account for roughly 25%-30% of overall site content. I'd like your opinions as to whether I should: 1. Delete the syndicated posts and 301 to an original page; 2. Do nothing 3. Do something I've yet to think of Any insight is welcomed! John
Technical SEO | | JSOC0 -
Getting a Video Sitemap Indexed
Hi, A client of mine completed a video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools a couple of months ago. As of yet the videos are still not indexing in Google. All of the videos sit on the one page but have unique URLs in the sitemap. Does anybody know a reason why they are not being indexed? Thanks David
Technical SEO | | RadicalMedia0 -
Can spammy links affect indexing?
Meaning, if you have a lot of bad quality links (directories, blog comments) that are giving great rankings for some terms (on a homepage of a site), could the low quality of these links negatively affect the crawling frequency of interior pages or perhaps even give interior pages a ranking penalty?
Technical SEO | | qlkasdjfw0