HELP! 75% Drop in Traffic with no Explaination

[Zachary_Russell]

Hello Everyone,

After looking at one of my websites, http://pokeronamac.com/ I noticed that there is a significant drop in all traffic to my site. I cannot figure out what the exact source is, as we received no warnings in WMT, and as far as I know there are no major updates released in the last week or so by Google.

I took a look at the content section of GA and I saw that virtually all of my content was seeing a decrease in traffic, meaning that it isn't specific to a few pages, which leads me to believe that it is an algorithmic penalty. My confusion was that there was no changes made to the website in the past few months, although, on September 10th (5 days after traffic dropped) I updated the meta descriptions and titles site wide.

I don't believe that the penalty is from Panda or Penguin because we actually experienced a positive influx in traffic during the week of April 25th.

I'd appreciate any insights into helping me recover from this so I can get the visits again that I had before. If any other metrics are required, i'd gladly provide them.

Thanks

Zach Russell

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[KevinBudzynski]

Can you do a screenshot traffic by source/medium 30 days before September 5 and after till today? Traffic drop most likely it's coming from Google Organics (someplace to start).

[StreamlineMetrics]

I did a search in Google to see the pages from your site that are indexed, and I discovered there are several pages with pharmaceutical drugs on them, which likely means your site was compromised.

For example, site:www.pokeronamac.com returns this URL - www.pokeronamac.com/somas/ which redirects to some online pharmacy.

So basically your site has been hijacked and pages are being redirected to an online pharmacy, so that explains the drop in traffic.

I'm not exactly sure how the hackers were able to gain access to your site, but it's relatively common with WordPress sites. Check out http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked for some answers.

[Zachary_Russell]

ADDENDUM: It looks like the redirects of the hack are not working anymore?****

So our options here are to:

1. Revert to a backup before the drop in traffic
2. Locate & Remove malicous code

Google didn't report any malaware on the site in WMT, but I see what you mean, should I still submit a reconsideration request either way once this is fixed?

Thanks,

Zach

[EGOL]

Going to a backup or removing code will clean the files for now.  However, you still have a problem.  You will be attacked repeatedly until you block the hacker's access.

Your wordpress install could be old, it could be compromised, your host could have a backdoor.

If you are not an expert at cleanup your best bet is to hire one.

[Zachary_Russell]

Okay,

Thank you guys so much for your help! I really appreciate this, and I can hopefully get this solved quickly. I'll keep everyone updated on what course of action I take, and the results the reparations make.

Thanks
Zach

[StreamlineMetrics]

Hmm, I just tried accessing one of the pages in Chrome and it doesn't redirect to the pharmacy. However, the redirects are still there when I search site:www.pokeronamac.com in Firefox and click on one of the drug pages. I end up getting redirected to http://worldbestonlinepharmacy.com/?wm=17750&tr=8030\. I have a feeling the hijacker's script only redirects a user once or twice before it turns off the redirect, which would explain why you are not seeing them and why I'm not seeing them when I try to view the pages again in Chrome.

If you are able to locate and remove the malicious code, then you may not need to revert to a backup. I'm not sure if you'll need to do a reconsideration request since it doesn't look your site was penalized but definitely make sure to remove the malicious code ASAP. If you find that traffic is still down after removing the script, then you might try submitting a reconsideration request. Did you notice a big drop in organic traffic for any of your targeted keywords?

[Zachary_Russell]

We have seen a drop in organic traffic by about 68% over the past week. This is according to SEOmoz.

[irvingw]

Are you ion a paid hosting service, call their tech support or open up a ticket and they will run tools against your site and remove the malicious code for you! It's not always easily found.

[Zachary_Russell]

Yes, we are actually doing that now. We have a dedicated box hosting a few of our websites. The developer doesn't have the permission to speak and the owner stepped away for a few minutes, but that is our plan, and if they cannot help us, we will go through and reinstall the WordPress core and the like.

Thanks