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
-
Weird 404 errors in Webmaster Tools
Hi, In a regular check with Webmaster Tools, I have noticed some weird 404 errors, for example, my domain URL is something like http://domainname.com/, the 404 error points to some weird URLs like http://domainname.com/james-bond&page=2/ and http://domainname.com/juegos-de&page=3/, at first I have tried to block them by robots.txt, but now I am getting these kind of 404 errors a lot, and don't think blocking them all is a perfect solution. Can anyone help me out with the issue? Thank you in advance.
Technical SEO | | nishthaj
cheers.0 -
Is this going to be seen by google as duplicate content
Hi All, Thanks in advance for any help that you can offer in regards to this. I have been conducted a bit of analysis of our server access file to see what googlebot is doing, where it is going etc. Now firstly, I am not SEO but have an interest. What I am seeing a lot of is that we have URL's that have an extension that sets the currency that is displayed on the products so that we can conduct Adwords campaigns in other countries, these show as follows: feedurl=AUD, feedurl=USD, feedurl=EUR etc. What I can see is that google bot is hitting a URL such as /some_product, then /someproduct?feedurl=USD and then /someproduct?feedurl=EUR and then /someproduct?feedurl=AUD all after each other. Now this is the same product page and just has the price shown slightly different on each. Would this count as a duplicate content issue? Should I disavow feedurl? Any assistance that you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Tim
Technical SEO | | timsilver0 -
Duplicate listings in Google UK for the same keyword phrase
If I search on Google UK for the keyword phrase personalised mugs, my website mug-shop.co.uk appears twice on the 2nd page one after the other. One result is for the home page and the other is for the category personalised mugs Weirdly enough another site i have celtmyth.co.uk does the same thing for the keyword phrase personalised candles but only intermittently. Should I be concerned & if so how do i resolve it? Cheers mug-shop-duplicate-ranking.jpg
Technical SEO | | Brinley0 -
Link Webmaster Tools to Tag Manager
I know it is now possible to verify google webmaster tools accounts using google tag manager, but is it also possible to create a link from webmaster tools to tag manager? I would like to connect the two. I have analytics already linked to tag manager, but can't find a clear answer regarding webmaster tools. Anybody? tx!
Technical SEO | | susancompass0 -
Keywords based domains redirecting to a site.. is it SPAM?
Keywords based domains redirecting to a site is considered spam isn't it ? And if yes, then is it considered spam in all cases whether those domain based sites are related or non related to main site?
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
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 -
Spurious malware warning in Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT)?
Hi, A client had a message in BWT: 'Bing Webmaster Tools detected 1 pages infected with malware on ...' The message was last updated 30/July but having checked the page and included javascript there's nothing that we can see which could be construed as malware. GWT seems happy enough with it and I've tried a couple of online site scanners (e.g. sucuri) and they seem happy enough. I'm minded to ignore it, but has anyone else had a similar experience? Thanks
Technical SEO | | JaspalX0 -
Duplicate content
I have to sentences that I want to optimize to different pages for. sentence number one is travel to ibiza by boat sentence number to is travel to ibiza by ferry My question is, can I have the same content on both pages exept for the keywords or will Google treat that as duplicate content and punish me? And If yes, where goes the limit/border for duplicate content?
Technical SEO | | stlastla0