Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
My site got hacked and now i have 1000s of 404 pages and backlinks. Should i transfer my site to a new domain name and start again?
-
My site was hacked and I had 1000s of pages that should not exist created and has had 1000s of backlinks put in. Now i have the same pages and backlinks redirecting to 404 pages. Is this why my site crashed out of google and my SEO fixes since have made no progress to my problem?
-
Its not a big problem and there is no need to start on a new domain. In fact, this is common with WordPress websites that are not updated regularly.
I would advise the following:
-
Try to identify how did the hack take place - if its WordPress you can install the Sucuri Security (free) plugin that will help identify any compromised files.
-
Cleanup the website by deleting all the spam sub-folders & pages.
-
Update your WordPress, Theme and all Plugins (if this is a WordPress website).
-
You can have a quick fix for all the 404s by submitting a 410 response code for these URLs. This can be done through a number of free redirection plugins on WordPress. If its not a WordPress site, there are a number of other options to get this done too.
Hope that helps.
-
-
Are you unable to retrieve your site from your server? Is your domain or site hacked?
-
Its not a problem to have 404-Pages, when they are not linked internally. High amount of pages pointing to your site sounds like you may have to disavow stuff. If your page is known long enaugh for search engines, a new domain with equal content will make the problems move to the new domain (you may can see that happen for dejanseo switching without redirect to dejanmarketing).
Did Google saw the hack and asked you to solve the problem?
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
-
Hide Cross Domain Rel=Canonical
Hi Guys I was just wondering what will be the best way to hide a rel=canonical on the server side, my sites rankings got switched exactly with my competitor and the problem is we use the same web designer/marketing people. so they have full access to both websites just found it weird for the rankings to switch so quickly.
Industry News | | johan80 -
What is the best way to become a published writer / blogger for bigger industry sites?
I'm a younger SEO manager and wanted to started establishing my name throughout the industry through well written blogs, expert articles, and any advice that is needed. I know a lot of answers will be to start my own blog and establish that and I'll get noticed, but is there a good way to make the first contact with industry sites to get an article or blog post published to their site? Or is it a pretty tight "gotta know someone" inner circle?
Industry News | | MERGE-Chicago0 -
My Recent Drop from the first page
Hello, I have a website design operation in Akron, Ohio. I have been ranking on the first page for the last year or so. Just recently (within the last 5 -6 weeks) I have fell back to page 2 on google. I have changed up my content a little bit on my home page, adding more references to the "Web Design Akron Ohio" keyword. I have looked at the sites ahead of me and I noticed that most of the highest ranking sites are using Meta-Keywords, which moz suggest not to. I added Meta-Keywords about 10 days ago just testing if there would be any ranking change and so far no change at all. Would someone be kind enough to look at my site and throw out some suggestions of what I might do to get back to the first page? I'm trying to rank for "web design akron ohio" and my URL is http://www.uswebproducts.com Any help would be appreciated.
Industry News | | Scott-Jones0 -
Can a Google Local listing be merged with a Goolge+ page?
I have a google+ company page set up and have recently added a Google local listing but have noticed it automatically sets up an additional company G+ page. Is there a way to merge the two? Can not see any reference to this issue on Google Q&A. Thanks, Stacey
Industry News | | skehoe0 -
Effect of changes on the Content page on search ranking
Hi, I have a question related to my ranking on Google Search On the content pages of my website, there is a section where our content keeps on changing. Whenever a visitor enters new information, Old information will be removed from the page. Therefore our content page is dynamic. Does this make us difficult to rank for particular keyword / overall.
Industry News | | adiez12340 -
Google to Target Overly SEOd Sites
I just watched the video from Barry Schwartz talking about the new Update to come with the Google Algo. Video of his Friday Post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJqSPT2NXdA I have also started reading on Webmasterworld on this topic: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4429947.htm What do you think Google has in the list of changes?
Industry News | | Ben-HPB0 -
How changing my domain name brought back rankings.
First I would not recommend doing this to anyone else, but my circumstances were extreme.
Industry News | | AlanMosley
Let me explain to those that did not read previous posts on the subject. I had a domain thatsit.net.au, I had never really promoted it as I used a keyword domain to rank in search engines but kept this domain mainly for email, but having said that it did rank ok considering, it ranked first for my business name at least.
A few moths back I decided to promote it and check the rankings, I was surprised to see that it ranked last for almost every thing,. Even my business name. Let me impress when I say last I mean in most cases absolute last and if not last very, very close to last.
I decided to get some links happening to move it of bottom, in my experiences a site that ranks that bad even a few links with show a big jump in rankings, it is easier to get from page 1000 to page 900 than it is to get from page 2 to page 1. The site had about 200 links and I pushed that up to about 1,000 but I was still at the bottom even for long tails searches where I was the only exact match on the internet.
asking for advice I got responses like you need better links and the such, this did not account for the sudden drop in rankings, as I knew the history I knew that thee was something deeper going on, I asked Google for reconsideration they said there was no manual action taken.
I should also mention I ranked very well in Bing all this time and still do.
By now I was getting paranoid that someone was stuffing me up somehow as a last resort I changed the domain name from thatsit.net.au to thatsit.com.au I did this about 10 days ago.
Today I searched for my company name and I came up #4 not bad from not being in the top 1,000 a few days ago.
Rankings are not where they used to be but I can handle that, I have 301’ed across all my links and have stated to change over the links I control, but as I still don’t know why the other domain would not move from the bottom as search results I am nervous that I may 301 over the problem.
I have never really done anything in the way of Black Hat SEO that would get me banned, maybe a bit of light grey over the years but nothing to worry about.
Anyhow I am non the wiser as to why things happened like they did. But I did want to report back to others that read the posts and thought that maybe I was imaging things.
I was never really depended on the domain ranking, what really bothers me is not knowing why the .net.au domain fell from rankiings and I still don’t know why.1 -
My websites Internal page is not ranking.
Hi, I had "x1", "x2","x3" keywords ranked for my websites internal page that is "www.somesite.com/internal-page.htm" i was fairly doing well for my keywords mostly in top 5, but now the case is from last couple of weeks, my internal page url is gone & replaced with home page. And I don't see internal page anywhere mostly in top 1000, is that penalty to internal page ?If yes how can i troubleshoot this ? I see my other pages in top 20-30 but that specific page is not anywhere. Please let me know. -Sunny.
Industry News | | sunny.popali0