Google Webmaster Tools - Inappropriate Keywords
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In December our website was the victim of a devastating pharma hack. Google Webmaster Tools never reported malware on our website, but our keywords within Webmaster Tools were all changed to keywords related to mens and ladies watches.
Our Google organic search rank and resulting traffic has been dramatically impacted.
Since realizing we were hacked, we rebuilt our website from the ground up with a clean and updated installation of Joomla CMS (from 1.5 to 2.5) and changed to a more secure server. As of December 21st, 2012, our website has been clean of the phama hack.
We wrote Google and told them what happened. They replied with a "no manual spam actions were found" message.
Unfortunately, Google Webmaster Tools still reflects all of the hacked keywords for mens and ladies watches.
We are watching our Google Webmaster Tools everyday waiting for Google to remove the hacked keywords. It's been a little over a month and still only about 5 of the first 100 keywords have anything to do with our website.
What do you recommend we do to expedite the removal of these inappropriate keywords in Google WMT?
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Ok so first we need to determine if Google has re-indexed all the page on your site.
In WMT look for a "wrong" key phrase bringing impressions for your site.
The last column on that page will show your average position under that key phrase. We are looking for a "wrong" key phrase that has a really high position(first or second page hopefully). Really this is just to make it easier to find in the results.
Now that you've got a key phrase do a google search for that phrase and scour to see if your website is still showing in the results. Keep in mind the data in WMT is an average position, not an exact position. So I usually dig a souple of page down if I don't see it right away.
If you are in the results still, What is the Title and Description for your site showing?
If it still shows "Watches..." etc in the Title/description, chances are Google Hasn't re-indexed that particular page. Take that specific URL and do a fetch as Google through WMT. Once it has done the fetch you should be able to submit the URL for re-indexing.
It will probably take a day, but that URL should be fixed pretty quickly.
On Scope, yes I'm talking about limiting the dates. You should be able to do this in the upper right hand,. If you can't find it send me a private message and I can try to show you another way.
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Paul,
Sorry to hear that you were also a victim of the pharma hack. Glad that things have cleared up for you. Any advice in your recovery with Google is appreciated.
I also appreciate your quick response. This hack has been so upsetting. We have been over a month in trying to figure this out and fix the issues that have come up and it still it seems it has been going at a snail's pace.
I just went into my WMT keywords and just for the keyword "watches" (and variants of it) we have 3,184,773 occurances.
I don't know what you mean by "limiting the scope of data" on WMT keywords. I don't see any date in the keyword area of WMT. How do we limit the scope of data?
When I look at the search query area almost 100% of those search terms are related to our website. So, that's excellent. It's just the keywords that are messed up and totally ridiculous!
We have resubmitted our website and I saw from our Googlebot fetch that all terms were out 12/24/12 and have been since then.
Thanks again, Paul.
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Hey Angela,
A majority of the keywords in WMT are related to impressions. I would pick a few of the top improper key words and search them to see if your site is still showing up.
If yes: Is the Pharma hack title/description still showing up? You can try resubmitting your pages for indexing through webmaster tools individually. You could also resubmit your sitemap thru WMT if you have a whole lot of pages.
If No: Try limiting the scope of data you are looking at in WMT to when you know for sure that the issues were fixed. Beyond just the issues being fixed though you need to determine when Googlebot actually updated its records to reflect the removal of the pharma hack, so keep limiting the scope until you see all of the pharma hack key phrases go away.
I've been the victim of pharma hack before, and unfortunately it just takes a little time for everything to clear up. Hopefully the above suggestions are helpful.
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