Clean-up Question after a wordpress site Hack added pages with external links from a massive link wheel?
-
Hey All, Thought I would throw this out to ensure I am dotting my "i's" and crossing my "t's".....
Client WordPress site was hacked injected 3-4 pages that cross linked to hundreds (affiliate junk spam link wheel).
- Pages were removed, 3rd party cleared all malware/viruses.
- Heavy duty firewall and security monitoring are in place.
- Hacked pages are now showing as 404.
- No penalties, ranking issues....If anything there was a temporary BOOST in rankings due to the large link-wheel type net that the pages were receiving....That has since leveled out rankings.
I guess my question is, in your opinion is it best to let those pages 404, I am noticing a large amount of links going to them from all over the world from this large link net that was built. I find the temptation to 301 re-direct deleted pages to the homepage difficult...lol..{the temptation is REAL}.
Is there anything I am missing? Any other steps that YOU would take? I am assuming letting those pages 404 would be the best bet, as in time they will roll off index....
Thank you in advance, I appreciate any feedback or opinions....
-
It may not be an issue, but be sure to keep checking Webmaster tools and if needed you might have to disavow those links.
Good Luck
-
- Use Sucuri remove all bad URL/URI's & to make sure the site is clean. https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/
- Don't 301 not relevant junk to you site.
- Use a 410 page to show Google you want "the bad links dead. in time they will roll off index"
- Add Sucuri WordPress plugin to check site.
Hope helps,
Tom
-
If you know what you do then you can use 410.
Because with 404 bot will coming to check that pages many times. With 410 it's only one or twice. Example from mine .htaccess:
Redirect 410 /salons/galka-3/
Redirect 410 /salons/galka-4/
Redirect 410 /salons/galka-1/
Redirect 410 /salons/galka-2/As you can see it's very easy and and sleek. BUT beware because if you send 410 to normal page then later you can't get this page ranked!
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
-
Moving content form Non-performing site to performing site - wihtout 301 Redirection
I have 2 different websites: one have good amount of traffic and another have No Traffic at all. I have a website that has lots of valuable content But no traffic. And I want to move the content of non-performing site to performing site. (Don't want to redirect) My only concern is duplicate content. I was thinking of setting the pages to "noindex" on the original website and wait until they don't appear in Google's index. Then I'd move them over to the performing domain to be indexed again. So, I was wondering If it will create any copied content issue or not? What should i have to take care of when I am going to move content from one site to another?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HuptechWebseo0 -
Boosting Equity-Passing Links?
Hello Moz folks, We have a SEO client who has exponentially fewer equity-passing links(inbound and internal) than their two major competitors, which I'm sure is a MAJOR factor in their rankings. In fact, the numbers are so drastically different seems to indicate that these competitors are participating in some sort of black hat link farm. For example: Internal and Inbound Equity-Passing Links Our client - 2274 Competitor 1 - 496k Competitor 2 - 143k How is this possible or legit? I don't understand. Our well-known client has been in business for 10+ years and they have a content-rich, WordPress website consisting of thousands of pages that have been optimized for search, including keyword-rich URLs, page titles, metas, H1 tags, etc. The things that keep coming to mind are the need for more links and more content. One thing that comes to mind is that the client launched a new site about 1.5 years ago and changed their domain prefix from http to https. I'm not sure if this would have an impact on inbound link equity or not. 301 redirects are in place so from what I understand, all of the old http pages should have passed at least partial domain equity to the new https site. I'm also wondering if changing the structure of WordPress categories, tags and author pages could somehow dynamically increase the page count and amount of perceived content. We may be overly restrictive with Google Search Console. Anyway, I'm at a loss and don't understand how our competitors, with seemingly similar content, could have exponentially more links and are dominating the search results. Thanks for your help and sage advice. Your input is very much appreciated. Eric pSzXl
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | EricFish0 -
Disappearing Links Black Hat ?
I have seen reports of Black hat spamming with dodgy links but we have another issue with a clients site. The site had a small number of solid following links about 60 which had been in place for years and in the past few weeks all but those directly under their control have ceased to link. At the same time a very aggressive competitor has entered their market which is owned by the officers of an SEO company. Could it be that they have somehow disavowed the links to the site to damage it how do we find out? there are now just 10 following links?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eff-Commerce0 -
Black linking exploitation
Hi all After watching our ranking for some primary keywords drop on Google from page 1 to 20 and then totally off the charts in relatively short period I've recently discovered through moz tools that our website along with other competitor sites are victims to black linking (may have the terminology wrong). Two primary words are anchor linked to our domain (www.solargain.com.au) being sex & b$tch through over 4000 compromised sites - mostly Wordpress - many which are high profile sites. Searching through the source code through half a dozen compromised sites I noticed that competitors are also linked using other derogatory terms, but the patterns indicate batch or clustered processing. The hacker has left some evidence as to whom they are representing as I can see some credible discussion forums which contain negative feedback on one particular supplier also among the links. Although this is pretty good evidence to why our ranking has dropped there are some interesting questions: A) is there any way to rectify the 4000 or so black links, mass removal or other. (Doesn't sound feasible)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mannydog
B) some competitors who dominate organic ranking through better optimization don't seem to be affected or apparently affected as much as our site at least. Which questions how much we are affected as a direct result from this hack.
C) is there action or support for industrial espionage?
D) can you request from google to ignore the inbound links and would they not have a duty of care to do so? I'm fairly new to this ugly side of the Internet and would like to know how to approach recovery and moving forward. Thoughts ideas very welcome. Thanks in advance.0 -
Shadow Page for Flash Experience
Hello. I am curious to better understand what I've been told are "shadow pages" for Flash experiences. So for example, go here:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mozcrush
http://instoresnow.walmart.com/Kraft.aspx#/home View the page as Googlebot and you'll see an HTML page. It is completely different than the Flash page. 1. Is this ok?
2. If I make my shadow page mirror the Flash page, can I put links in it that lead the user to the same places that the Flash experience does?
3. Can I put "Pinterest" Pin-able images in my shadow page?
3. Can a create a shadow page for a video that has the transcript in it? Is this the same as closed captioning? Thanks so much in advance, -GoogleCrush0 -
What on-page/site optimization techniques can I utilize to improve this site (http://www.paradisus.com/)?
I use a Search Engine Spider Simulator to analyze the homepage and I think my client is using black hat tactics such as cloaking. Am I right? Any recommendations on to improve the top navigation under Resorts pull down. Each of the 6 resorts listed are all part of the Paradisus brand, but each resort has their own sub domain.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Melia0 -
Blogspot or Wordpress.com Redirect?
I have multiple domains with the same registrar. Is there an SEO benefit to create complimentary blogs on blogspot, wordpress.com or other "free" blog sites and forward these domains with the purpose of backlinking to the main site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | reeljerc0 -
Problems with link spam from spam blogs to competitor sites
A competitor of ours is having a great deal of success with links from spam blogs (such as: publicexperience.com or sexylizard.org) it is proving to be a nightmare. Google does not detect these (the competitor has been doing well now for over a year) and my boss is starting to think if you can’t beat them, join them. Frankly, he is right – we have built some great links but it is nigh on impossible to beat 400+ highly targeted spam links in a niche market. My question is, has anyone had success in getting this sort of stuff brought to the attention of Google and banned (I actually listed them all in a message in webmaster tools and sent them over to Google over a year ago!). This is frustrating, I do not want to join in this kind of rubbish but it is hard to put a convincing argument against it when our competitor has used the technique successfully for over a year without any penalty. Ideas? Thoughts? All help appreciated
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RodneyRiley0