Site not showing up in search - was hacked - huge comment spam - cannot connect Webmaster tools
-
Hi Moz Community
A new client approached me yesterday for help with their site that used to rank well for their designated keywords, but now is not doing well. Actually, they are not on Google at all. It's like they were removed by Google. There are not reference to them when searching with "site: url".
I investigated further and discovered the likely problem . . . 26 000 spam comments! All these comments have been removed now. I clean up this Wordpress site pretty well.
However, I want to connect it now to Google webmaster tools. I have admin access to the WP site, but not ftp. So I tried using Yoast to connect. Google failed to verify the site. So the I used a file uploading console to upload the Google html code instead. I check that the code is there. And Google still fails to verify the site.
It is as if Google is so angry with this domain that they have wiped it completely from search and refuse to have any dealings with it at all. That said, I did run the "malware" check or "dangerous content" check with them that did not bring back any problems.
I'm leaning towards the idea that this is a "cursed" domain in Google and that my client's best course of action is to build her business around and other domain instead. And then point that old domain to the new domain, hopefully without attracting any bad karma in that process (advice on that step would be appreciated).
Anyone have an idea as to what is going on here?
-
HI Alistair,
I don't think that is because Google is so Angry and its not letting you verify your site in search engine consule. There might be some technical issue or anyother possibel reason. such as, your server might be not responding to Google bot or Google is unable to connect with your server.
In addtion to that if its download is not redirecting.
There are other option available for you to verify the site, I am sure, you're femiliar with those but i reckon to use via domain name provider.Moreover, before you submit site, make sure your site is fully secure.
I hope this will help.
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
-
Breaking up a site into multiple sites
Hi, I am working on plan to divide up mid-number DA website into multiple sites. So the current site's content will be divided up among these new sites. We can't share anything going forward because each site will be independent. The current homepage will change to just link out to the new sites and have minimal content. I am thinking the websites will take a hit in rankings but I don't know how much and how long the drop will last. I know if you redirect an entire domain to a new domain the impact is negligible but in this case I'm only redirecting parts of a site to a new domain. Say we rank #1 for "blue widget" on the current site. That page is going to be redirected to new site and new domain. How much of a drop can we expect? How hard will it be to rank for other new keywords say "purple widget" that we don't have now? How much link juice can i expect to pass from current website to new websites? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | timdavis0 -
GG webmaster tool crawl rate
Hello, I just redid my website and suddenly saw a spike in the crawl rate for about 2 weeks and I am now back to where I was on average. Is it normal ? My guess it that this increase was due to the change in site and new links ? However,I just want to make sure it is normal that it is back to a "normal rate" now that it has discovered all the links. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Why Is Google Webmaster Tools Pulling Zero Keyword Data?
I just linked a Google Webmaster Tools account to Google Analytics for a client, and Search Engine Optimization reports are showing up in Google Analytics as enabled, but there is zero keyword data, landing page data, etc., in the reports themselves. Has anyone encountered this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yoursearchteam0 -
Should I just redirect all my sites to my main site.
Hi, Over the last few years I have built many sites and own a lot of domain names. Some have high page rank some have high domain authority and some have many back links. I'm finding it very difficult to keep up with all the links and being able to provide quality content for everything. Should I just redirect everything to my one site that make the most money as all sites are for the same industry, but in different categories of that industry. So I could 301 redirect all the sites to the relevant page on my money site. Would it be a problem is 1000's if not 10,000's of links all of a sudden pointed in to one site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cibble030 -
Is there a way to get a list of Total Indexed pages from Google Webmaster Tools?
I'm doing a detailed analysis of how Google sees and indexes our website and we have found that there are 240,256 pages in the index which is way too many. It's an e-commerce site that needs some tidying up. I'm working with an SEO specialist to set up URL parameters and put information in to the robots.txt file so the excess pages aren't indexed (we shouldn't have any more than around 3,00 - 4,000 pages) but we're struggling to find a way to get a list of these 240,256 pages as it would be helpful information in deciding what to put in the robots.txt file and which URL's we should ask Google to remove. Is there a way to get a list of the URL's indexed? We can't find it in the Google Webmaster Tools.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sparrowdog0 -
Development site is live (and has indexed) alongside live site - what's the best course of action?
Hello Mozzers, I am undertaking a site audit and have just noticed that the developer has left the development site up and it has indexed. They 301d from pages on old site to equivalent pages on new site but seem to have allowed the development site to index, and they haven't switched off the development site. So would the best option be to redirect the development site pages to the homepage of the new site (there is no PR on dev site and there are no links incoming to dev site, so nothing much to lose...)? Or should I request equivalent to equivalent page redirection? Alternatively I can simply ask for the dev site to be switched off and the URLs removed via WMT, I guess... Thanks in advance for your help! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart1 -
Www vs. non-www differences in crawl errors in Webmaster tools...
Hey All, I have been working on an eCommerce site for a while that to no avail, continues to make me want to hang myself. To make things worth the developers just do not understand SEO and it seems every change they make just messes up work we've already done. Job security I guess. Anywho,most recently we realized they had some major sitemap issues as almost 3000 pages were submitted by only 20 or so were indexed. Well, they updated the sitemap and although all the pages are properly indexing, I now have 5000+ "not found" crawl errors in the non-www version of WMT and almost none in the www version of the WMT account. Anyone have insight as to why this would be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RossFruin0 -
Old deleted sitemap still shown in webmaster tools
Hello I have redisgned a website inl new url structure in cms. Old sitemap was not set to 404 but changed with new sitemap files,also new sitemap was named different to old one.All redirections done properly Still 3 month after google still shows me duplicate titile and metas by comparing old and new urls I am lost in what to do now to eliminate the shown error. How can google show urls that are not shown in sitemap any more? Looking forward to any help Michelles
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tit0