Manual action due to hack
-
We have had some issues with one of our websites getting hacked. The first time it happened, we noticed it the next morning and cleaned it up before Google even realised. However, the same thing happened again over the weekend, and I came into the office to an email from Google:
Google has detected that your site has been hacked by a third party who created malicious content on some of your pages. This critical issue utilizes your site’s reputation to show potential visitors unexpected or harmful content on your site or in search results. It also lowers the quality of results for Google Search users. Therefore, we have applied a manual action to your site that will warn users of hacked content when your site appears in search results. To remove this warning, clean up the hacked content, and file a reconsideration request. After we determine that your site no longer has hacked content, we will remove this manual action.
_Following are one or more example URLs where we found pages that have been compromised. Review them to gain a better sense of where this hacked content appears. The list is not exhaustive. _
We have again cleaned up the website, however, my problem is that even though we have received this email, I cannot find any evidence of the manual action having actually been applied. I.e. it doesn't show in the Search Console and I am also not getting a warning in the search results when searching for our own website or clicking on the result for our website. That means I cannot submit a reconsideration request - however I am not sure at all there was actually a manual action applied at all based on my test searches.
Has anyone here experienced the same issue? What do you suggest doing in this case?
Thank you very much in advance for any ideas.
-
You're welcome!
-
Thanks Joe. I will do that. Very helpful, I appreciate it!
-
I would keep an eye on organic performance for the next week or two (regularly checking the security issues/manual action reports). If you do not see a downward trend nor receive another message from Google, you should be all set here.
To review organic performance, I suggest monitoring:
-
Organic traffic (GA)
-
Organic Visibility Trends/Rankings (SEMRush, Moz rank tracker)
-
Google Search Console clicks and impressions (particularly for non-branded queries)
Hope this all helps!
-
-
It must have been, although I could also not see anything in Search Console before we cleaned up the hack.
I haven't seen it affect organic performance at all although it's hard to say as we are a B2B business and don't see as much traffic on weekends. Plus it's our corporate website which doesn't get much traffic to begin with.
-
If you are not seeing anything in the manual action report, security issues report or in the SERPs, I would say that Google has detected that the hack was addressed and has removed your manual action. Is organic performance still being impacted?
-
Hi Joe,
The report just says: "Currently, we haven't detected any security issues with your site's content." That's the problem, I had the email, but in Search Console there is no evidence of any hack (although we were definitely hacked, and it is now cleaned up).
Thanks!
-
Hello,
Did you review the Security Issues Report in Google Search Console? If you have a security issue/have been hacked, this is where you will submit a review once the issue has been cleaned up. This Google Webmasters post on hacked sites/requesting a review should help.
Malware or Spam
- Open the Security Issues report in Search Console. The report will probably still show the warnings and sample infected URLs you saw before.
- If you believe that the sample URLs listed are all clean, select Request a review. In order to submit a review, we ask that you provide more information that the site is cleaned of the hacker's damage. For example, for each category within Security Issues, you can write a sentence explaining how the site was cleaned (for example, "For Content injection hacked URLs, I removed the spammy content and corrected the vulnerability: updating an out-of-date plugin.").
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
-
Some URLs were not accessible to Googlebot due to an HTTP status error.
Hello I'm a seo newbie and some help from the community here would be greatly appreciated. I have submitted the sitemap of my website in google webmasters tools and now I got this warning: "When we tested a sample of the URLs from your Sitemap, we found that some URLs were not accessible to Googlebot due to an HTTP status error. All accessible URLs will still be submitted." How do I fix this? What should I do? Many thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | GoldenRanking140 -
Google’s Latest Manual Action Penalty: Spammy Structured Markup
Anyone out there begin receiving this and or know when it started? Google has recently began sending a new manual action spam notification to webmasters for “spammy structured markup” also known as rich snippet spam. Your pal, Chenzo
Technical SEO | | Chenzo0 -
5 minutes riddle of a hacked website - 2nd run
Hi, i am just a common person and no developper. I am sure that one of you will no the solution to my problem. If you beleive that you are the one SEO expert i need, this is going to cost you 5 minutes of your time. Before i confuse you with my broken English and wrong terminology i have created a short video of my google stats. See attached youtube link. Intro: My site has been hacked, therefore i created a completely new site on a different server with fresh data. Unfortunately google does not seem to recognize all the changes. My website URL is: goo.gl/mJqXF4 _Sorry for posting in the wrong category. To answer the questions asked there:_My site was hacked via SQL Injects because it was outdated and without any security solution. My local files where not used in any way to create the new site with the exception of some NAS stored pictures. Support or educate me if you prefer, or just let me know what a complete cleanup and restoration of my #4 (keyword: proberaum frankfurt) and #2 (keyword: proberaum) ranking would cost me. Thank you in advance! E59V73q8jtQ
Technical SEO | | csabatoldi0 -
Duplicated content in moz report due to Magento urls in a multiple language store.
Hi guys, Moz crawl is reporting as duplicated content the following urls in our store: http://footdistrict.com and http://footdistrict.com?___store=footdistrict_es The chain: ___store=footdistrict_es is added as you switch the language of the site. Both pages have the http://footdistrict.com" /> , but this was introduced some time after going live. I was wondering the best action to take considering the SEO side effects. For example: Permanent redirect from http://footdistrict.com?___store=footdistrict_es to http://footdistrict.com. -> Problem: If I'm surfing through english version and I switch to spanish, apache will realize that http://footdistrict.com?___store=footdistrict_es is going to be loaded and automatically it will redirect you to http:/footdistrict.com. So you will stay in spanish version for ever. Deleting the URLS with the store code from Google Web Admin tools. Problem: What about the juice? Adding those URL's to robots.txt. Problem: What about the juice? more options? Basically I'm trying to understand the best option to avoid these pages being indexed. Could you help here? Thanks a lot.
Technical SEO | | footd0 -
Penalised due to links?
Hi, Is there a way to tell if a site has been penalised for it's links? Our site dropped last Friday, and we would like to rule out links, as we plan to move the site to our main site and re-direct the links, unless Google would punish the new url due to this. Our old site does not show any warnings for the link, and neither does our Google WM account, the only thing we have to go by is a big drop in SERP. Many thanks. Quime.
Technical SEO | | Quime0 -
Site Got Hacked! Need Help!
Hi Guys. One of my friend's site got hacked 2 weeks ago, because of bad php script hole and Google indexed the pages which got hacked and all the Title Tags and Descriptions are indexed in the Google which is very embarssing situation. All adult content texts. Right now we have solved the problem and closed the hole submitted the new sitemap, but Google is no longer coming back and refreshining the SERP. We have been waiting for 3 weeks for now? What should we do? Methods we tried so far: 1.Cleaned all meta tags generate new sitemap and submitted that to Google 2.Built some backlinks 3.Built some social bookmarks Thanks!
Technical SEO | | DigitalJungle0 -
RSS Hacking Issue
Hi Checked our original rss feed - added it to Google reader and all the links go to the correct pages, but I have also set up the RSS feed in Feedburner. However, when I click on the links in Feedburner (which should go to my own website's pages) , they are all going to spam sites, even though the title of the link and excerpt are correct. This isn't a Wordpress blog rss feed either, and we are on a very secure server. Any ideas whatsoever? There is no info online anywhere and our developers haven't seen this before. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Kerry220 -
Using differing calls to action based on IP address
Hi, We have an issue with a particular channel on a lead generation site where we have sales staff requiring different quality of leads in different parts of the country. In saturated markets they require a stricter lead qualification process than those in more challenging markets. To combat the problem I am toying with the idea of severing very slightly different content based on IP address. The main change in content would be in terms of calls to action and lead qualification processes. We would plan to have a "standard" version of the site for when IP location can not be detected. URLs on this version would be the rel="canonical" for the location specific pages. Is there a way to do this without creating duplicate content, cloaking or other such issues on the site? Any advice, theories or case studies would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | SEM-Freak1