Help! Is this what is called "cloaking"?
-
Friend asked me to look at her website. Ran it through screaming frog and BAM, instead of 4 pages i was expecting it returned HUNDREDS. 99.9% of them are for cheap viagra and pharmaceuticals. I asked her if she was selling viagra, which is fine, I don't judge. But she swears she isn't.
I ran it through google site:janeflahertyesq.com and sure enough, if you click on some of those, they take you to canadien pharmacys selling half priced blue pills.
a) is this cloaking? if not, what is going on?
b) more importantly, how do I we get rid of those hundreds of pages / de-indexed
She's stumped and scared. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance and for the work you do.
-
Check with your hosting company as well. Asking Google to deindex the pages will be a temporary fix if the files still physically reside on your website. A reputable hosting company will secure their servers so content like this is less likely to be added.
-
You are welcome
-
Thanks, we'll try this.
-
The main reason for that, is probably your site has been hacked and it is used as zombie website. Im pretty sure that problem is the theme or some nulled plugin this kind of problem is very usual when some one get a theme of an untrusted website. So make a backup of your site, then delete everything, add a fresh version of your theme and plugins.
Once your site is clean follow these tips
To secure your website
https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall/Another security tips
https://yoast.com/wordpress-security/ -
Sorry my mistake I misunderstood your question
- what is happening/how did those urls get added to my friends domain?
probably the site was hacked, in my case I had some issues like this one,
caused for malicious scripts,on non official themes or plugins.- how do we get rid of them?
Go to your Search Console > Google Index > Remove URLs -
Thank you for that response and I totally understand and agree w it. However it didn't seem to answer my questions, namely
-
what is happening/how did those urls get added to my friends domain?
-
how do we get rid of them?
-
-
Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides our users with different results than they expected.
Google has released the Disavow Tool to help webmasters deal with this problem, but the tool should be used with caution and only as a last resort.
To report spam websites here
A rich snippet may be considered spam if it harms the user experience by highlighting falsified or misleading information. For example, a rich snippet promoting a travel package as an Event or displaying fabricated Reviews would be considered spam.
Report spam in rich snippets here
Check out Matt Cutts’s answer VIDEO It usually takes 2-4 weeks for the tool to work. Can you afford to have your website penalized for 1 month? No one can! I will show you how you can prevent these attacks and keep your business safe.
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
-
Significant "Average Position" dips in Search Console each time I post on Google My Business
Hi everyone, Several weeks ago I noticed that each Wednesday my site's Average Position in Search Console dipped significantly. Immediately I identified that this was the day my colleague published and back-linked a blog post, and so we spent the next few weeks testing and monitoring everything we did. We discovered that it was ONLY when we created a Google My Business post that the Average Position dipped, and on the 1st July we tested it one more time. The results were the same (please see attached image). I am 100% confident that Google My Business is the cause of the issue, but can't identify why. The image I upload belongs to me, the text isn't spammy or stuffed with keywords, the Learn More links to my own website, and I never receive any warnings from Google about the content. I would love to hear the community's thoughts on this and how I can stop the issue from continuing. I should note, that my Google My Business insights are generally positive i.e. no dips in search results etc. My URL is https://www.photographybymatthewjames.com/ Thanks in advance Matthew C0000OTrpfmNWx8g
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PhotoMattJames0 -
Ranking Fluctuation on "Canvas Prints" keyword in google.co.uk
Hello Moz We are struggling for "canvas prints" ranking in google.co.uk since last 2 years. every time in SERP my webpage has been changed. i want to rank this URL on this particular keyword - "canvas prints" Can you tell me why my page has been fluctuate every time in SERP's. mtwpvf
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CommercePundit1 -
Linking Anchor Text is simply "." what is the purpose of this?
I have several backlinks with high spam scores. The anchor text as listed is either just a period, or it says there is no anchor text. These links don't generate traffic and there is no way for me to contact the website owner. Is this a case for the Search Console Disavow Tool?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Harley.Helmer0 -
Help with E-Commerce Product Pages
Hi, I need to find the best way to put my products on our e-commerce website. I have researched and researched but I thought I'd gather a range of ideas in here. Basically I have the following fields: Product Title
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | YNWA
Product Description
Product Short Description SEO Title
Focus Keyword(s) (this is a feature of our CMS)
Meta Description The problem we have is we have a lot of duplicate content eg. 10 Armani Polos but then each one will be a different colour (but the model number is the same). I don't want to miss out on rankings because of this. What would you say is the best way to do this? My idea is this: Product Title: Armani Jeans Polo Shirt Blue
Product Description: Armani Jeans Polo Shirt in Blue Made from 100% cotton Armani Jeans Polo with Short Sleeves, Pique Collar and Button Up Collar. Designer Boutique Menswear are official stockists of Armani Jeans Polos.
Short Description: Blue Armani Jeans Polo SEO Title: Armani Jeans Polo Shirt Blue MA001 | Designer Boutique Menswear
Focus Keywords: Armani Jeans Polo Shirt
Meta Description: Blue Armani Jeans Polo Shirt. Made from 100% cotton. Designer Boutique Menswear are official stockists of Armani Polos. What are peoples thoughts on this? I would then run the same format across each of the different colours. Another question is on the product title and seo title, should these be exactly the same? And does it matter if I put the colour at the beginning or end of the title? Any help would be great.0 -
Do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
Hey everyone, Just wondering, do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jhinchcliffe1 -
Website Vulnerability Leading to Doorway Page Spam. Need Help.
Keywords he is ranking for , houston dwi lawyer, houston dwi attorney and etc.. Client was acquired in June and since then we have done nothing but build high quality links to the website. None of our clients were dropped/dinged or impacted by the panda/penguin updates in 2012 or updates previously published via Google. Which proves we do quality SEO work. We went ahead and started duplicating links which worked for other legal clients and 5 months later this client is either dropping or staying in local maps results and we are performing very badly in organic results. Some more history..... When he first engaged our company we switched his website from a CMS called plone to word press. During our move I ran some searches to figure out which pages we needed to 301 and we came across many profile pages or member pages created on the clients CMS (PLONE). These pages were very spammy and linked to other plone sites using car model,make,year type keywords (ex:jeep cherokee dealerships). I went through these sites to see if they were linking back and could not find any back links to my clients website. Obviously nobody authorized these pages, they all looked very hackish and it seemed as though there was a vulnerability on his plone CMS installation which nobody caught. Fast forward 5 months and the newest OSE update is showing me a good 50+ back links with unrelated anchor text back links. These anchor text links are the same color as the background and can only be found if you hover your mouse over certain areas of the site. All of these sites are built on Plone and allot of them are linked to other businesses or community websites. These websites obviously have no clue they have been hacked or are being used for black hat purposes. There are dozens of unrelated anchor text links being used on external websites which are pointing back to our clients website. Examples: <a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">autex Isuzu, </a><a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">Toyota service department ratings, </a><a class="clickable title link-pivot" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text">die cast BMW and etc..</a> Obviously the first step is to use the disavow link tool, which will be completed this week. The second step is to take some feedback from the SEO community. It seems like these pages are automatically created using some type of bot. It will be very tedious if we have to continually remove these links. I hope there is a way to notify Google that these websites are all plone and have a vulnerability, which black hats are using to harm the innocent... If i cannot get Google to handle this, then the only other option is to start fresh with a new domain name. What would you do in this situation. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | waqid0 -
Does PR 7, PR 8, PR 9 links help really?
HI GUYS, I have been offered a few link opportunities on websites that have a PR 7, 8 & 9 but will it help my rankings because the website it not related whatsoever to what my website is about.. My website is about insurance and these high PR websites are not related to insurance.. Does it really matter??? Any guidance much apprciate please guys... Thanks Gareth
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GAZ090 -
Help! Why are my rankings down?
Hi, Over the last couple of days I have found a HUGE drop in traffic. I checked a lot of our rankings, and we are definitely out of the game for at least a few keywords (not on 1st page). Our ranking has dropped on other keywords. We even dropped to #2 (for the first time ever) for our branded keyword search term. What happened?! Could it have been the Penguin update, 1 month after it was released? Help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MangoMan160
