Malicious site pointed A-Record to my IP, Google Indexed

[FranGen]

Hello All,

I launched my site on May 1 and as it turns out, another domain was pointing it's A-Record to my IP. This site is coming up as malicious, but worst of all, it's ranking on keywords for my business objectives with my content and metadata, therefore I'm losing traffic.

I've had the domain host remove the incorrect A-Record and I've submitted numerous malware reports to Google, and attempted to request removal of this site from the index. I've resubmitted my sitemap, but it seems as though this offending domain is still being indexed more thoroughly than my legitimate domain.

Can anyone offer any advice? Anything would be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,

Doug

[Highland]

That sounds like a bad web server config. Most servers run a virtual host, meaning the URL determines what website is served up. Either you have your own virtual dedicated server and only one site that isn't using vhost, or your host has set your website up as the default site.

If you have control over the web server config, I would add the malicious site to the config as a hosted site and then have it return a 404. That should de-index it.

If you don't have that level of control, try to get a 301 redirect for the bad domain. You really need  something like an htaccess that says if a site is accessing my website as anything but www.mydomain.com it needs to 301 to that URL. Otherwise anyone in the world can hijack your site the way it's set up now. Just point another A record and instant duplicate content headaches.

[FranGen]

Thanks for your reply! It's hosted with GoDaddy on their Economy package. I believe it's shared hosting.

With that being said, unfortunately I don't have access to the server config. How would I go about implementing a 301 redirect for the other domain or even better a 404?

I absolutely agree about modifying the htaccess. As it stands now, I've hacked it together, but I'll see if I can find out how to do what you're suggesting.

I appreciate your feedback so far.

Best regards

[Highland]

Your htaccess file can do the 301 (it's actually a config file you can control). Here's some sample code that should do the trick.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

[FranGen]

Thank you! This will prevent future issues, but in terms of the other domain pulling rank on mine, is that something I need to wait out since I have no control? Is there any way to have it removed?

[Highland]

Does it still resolve to your site? If not, it should fall off as Google spiders it again.

[FranGen]

Nope, it doesn't. I guess it's just a waiting game at this point. Thank you again.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Edward,

You might have already done this, but:

1. Crawl as Googlebot to your homepage - submit all pages and all linked pages to index.

2. You said you submitted your sitemap. Submit it again.

3. Hopefully this will resolve in a couple weeks. Tough to wait it out.

[FranGen]

Thanks Cyrus. Do you mean Fetch as Google? I'm not too familiar with that specific tool.

Just in case someone runs into the same issue that I've encountered, I'll include my final steps in remedying this problem (hopefully).

I was finally able to contact the webmaster of the other domain who agreed to take down the site. I contacted GoDaddy to confirm her site was down, since I wasn't risking getting my machine infected with malware. Next I went to Webmaster Tools and requested content removal, page by page until all of the bad URLs were submitted.

In my frustration and possibly paranoia, I've also had to battle with GoDaddy to get a new dedicated IP address since I believe this IP could now be "tainted" or flagged as a malicious or spammy.

Cyrus, you couldn't be more accurate. Extremely tough to wait out. Hopefully this will help someone out down the road.

Thanks again.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Yes, sorry, Fetch as Google: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=158587