Malicious links on our site indexed by Google but only visible to bots
-
We've been suffering from some very nasty black hat seo. In Google's index, our pages show external links to various pharmaceutical websites, but our actual live pages don't show them. It seems as though only certain user-agents see the malicious links. Setting up Screaming Frog SEO crawler using the Googlebot user agent also sees the malicious links.
Any idea what could have caused this or how this can be stopped? We scanned all files on our webserver and couldn't find any of malicious links. We've changed our FTP and CMS passwords, is there anything else we can do?
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi SEO-Bas! Just checking, is the issue resolved? I want to make sure you get the help you need, if not.
-
Hi Andy,
Thanks for your help. The problem seems to be fixed by doing the following:
- Restore backup
- Change all relevant passwords
- Fetch and crawl all affected pages
- Get malicious URL's on our domain in Google's index removed from Google's index
See more affected websites (make sure to load the page in Google's cache): https://www.google.nl/search?q="viagra+kopen"&safe=off&biw=1680&bih=881&tbs=qdr:w&ei=AbSgV_uvM8j6aeaHkKAH&start=0&sa=N
Thanks anyways!
-
Hi Bas,
Without looking in more detail, it is almost impossible to say how it has been done, but there are so many dirty tricks out there.
Is the site running on Wordpress? Do you want to PM me an example to have a look at?
-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
-
Site Footer Links Used for Keyword Spam
I was on the phone with a proposed web relaunch firm for one of my clients listening to them talk about their deep SEO knowledge. I cannot believe that this wouldn’t be considered black-hat or at least very Spammy in which case a client could be in trouble. On this vendor’s site I notice that they stack the footer site map with about 50 links that are basically keywords they are trying to rank for. But here’s the kicker shown by way of example from one of the themes in the footer: 9 footer links:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RosemaryB
Top PR Firms
Best PR Firms
Leading PR Firms
CyberSecurity PR Firms
Cyber Security PR Firms
Technology PR Firms
PR Firm
Government PR Firms
Public Sector PR Firms Each link goes to a unique URL that is basically a knock-off of the homepage with a few words or at the most one sentences swapped out to include this footer link keyword phrase, sometimes there is a different title attribute but generally they are a close match to each other. The canonical for each page links back to itself. I simply can’t believe Google doesn’t consider this Spammy. Interested in your view.
Rosemary0 -
Google Images and slideshow copyright
Hello, I made a slideshow and referenced Google Images without searching with advanced copyright settings. Can I just put a copyright disclaimer in my video, or do I need to reshoot it? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Link Building / Link Removal
Hey, I'm in the process of learning SEO, or attempting to, for my company and am chipping away at the process ever so slowly! How can I tell if a site that links to my company's site, www.1099pro.com, has a negative effect on my page/domain authority? Also, if a page doesn't show up in the search rankings at all for it's keywords when it really should (i.e it has the exact keywords and page/domain authority far surpasses even the top results) how can I tell if Google has removed the page from its listing and why? Thanks SEO Gurus
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Stew2220 -
Reorganizing Links
Hello Guys, Im Reorganizing my link building list in excel. I have tons of good links that I found in the last 3 months. What I want to ask is if there is a way to put those links in my excel list in a automatic way with the folowing fields: Domain Pagerank DA (from moz) Type Submission link Im doint it manual and is driving me crazy 😛 Tks in advance! Regards, MM
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CurriculosOnline0 -
Where Is This Link Coming From?
According to Moz Analytics we have a link coming from here: http://www.grayshadowfinancial.com/ The anchor text is earthquake prone map. I can't find the link, but if I cntrl+f "earthquake prone map" it shows in the find box, even though I can't see it. I'm guessing this is some spam tactic and they are hiding this with their CSS? Is there anyway I could see it? Best, Ruben
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Forum Ping Back Links
Hi all, This will probably be a fairly simple question, however I'm unsure of the correct terminology to get a good answer via search. Some of my competitors have links in the comment section of highly respected websites, example of one occurrence on the mighty Wired: http://www.wired.com/bodyhack/2007/07/good-green/ Since Panda and Penguin I know Google has attempted to disregard any sort of link juice from such comment/forum spam - is this the case with comment links in sites such as Wired, as above? I'd like to hear that such comment spam actually harms the ranking of competitor sites..is there any truth to this also? I want to avoid all sorts of spammy approaches to SEO such as this - I've always been an ethical marketer, and would rather not stoop to these levels...but if they work and there is no chance of ranking penalisation.. Thanks for your time, dudes!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | paj19790 -
New Site Structure
Greetings SEOmoz Team and Users, I need some advise, our site has more products to offer so I am try to optimize the index for a general term and each page product for it's own main keyword. Our site offers accommodation such apartments, hotels and vacation rentals so this is my structure: Index: Main Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Site name(brand name) Page Product 1: Main Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Site name (brand name) Page Product 2: Main Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Site name (brand name) Also can I use the brand name at the end of title tag with separate words ? example: londonescape or london escape or londonescape.net London Apartments | short term london apartments | London Escape or London Apartments | short term london apartments | LondonEscape I think ''London Escape'' is better because has more popularity. Looking forward to hear from you. Thanks, Giuseppe
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WorldEscape0 -
What is the difference between advertizing and a paid link?
I have been told that google frowns on paid links yet I see many site charging for advertizing and the advertizing consists of an anchor text link. What is the difference between a paid link and this type of advertizing?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | casper4340