Manual action due to hack

[ViviCa1]

We have had some issues with one of our websites getting hacked. The first time it happened, we noticed it the next morning and cleaned it up before Google even realised. However, the same thing happened again over the weekend, and I came into the office to an email from Google:

Google has detected that your site has been hacked by a third party who created malicious content on some of your pages. This critical issue utilizes your site’s reputation to show potential visitors unexpected or harmful content on your site or in search results. It also lowers the quality of results for Google Search users. Therefore, we have applied a manual action to your site that will warn users of hacked content when your site appears in search results. To remove this warning, clean up the hacked content, and file a reconsideration request. After we determine that your site no longer has hacked content, we will remove this manual action.

_Following are one or more example URLs where we found pages that have been compromised. Review them to gain a better sense of where this hacked content appears. The list is not exhaustive. _

We have again cleaned up the website, however, my problem is that even though we have received this email, I cannot find any evidence of the manual action having actually been applied. I.e. it doesn't show in the Search Console and I am also not getting a warning in the search results when searching for our own website or clicking on the result for our website. That means I cannot submit a reconsideration request - however I am not sure at all there was actually a manual action applied at all based on my test searches.

Has anyone here experienced the same issue? What do you suggest doing in this case?

Thank you very much in advance for any ideas.

[Joe_Stoffel]

Hello,

Did you review the Security Issues Report in Google Search Console? If you have a security issue/have been hacked, this is where you will submit a review once the issue has been cleaned up. This Google Webmasters post on hacked sites/requesting a review should help.

Malware or Spam

1. Open the Security Issues report in Search Console. The report will probably still show the warnings and sample infected URLs you saw before.
2. If you believe that the sample URLs listed are all clean, select Request a review. In order to submit a review, we ask that you provide more information that the site is cleaned of the hacker's damage. For example, for each category within Security Issues, you can write a sentence explaining how the site was cleaned (for example, "For Content injection hacked URLs, I removed the spammy content and corrected the vulnerability: updating an out-of-date plugin.").

[ViviCa1]

Hi Joe,

The report just says: "Currently, we haven't detected any security issues with your site's content." That's the problem, I had the email, but in Search Console there is no evidence of any hack (although we were definitely hacked, and it is now cleaned up).

Thanks!

[Joe_Stoffel]

If you are not seeing anything in the manual action report, security issues report or in the SERPs, I would say that Google has detected that the hack was addressed and has removed your manual action. Is organic performance still being impacted?

[ViviCa1]

It must have been, although I could also not see anything in Search Console before we cleaned up the hack.

I haven't seen it affect organic performance at all although it's hard to say as we are a B2B business and don't see as much traffic on weekends. Plus it's our corporate website which doesn't get much traffic to begin with.

[Joe_Stoffel]

I would keep an eye on organic performance for the next week or two (regularly checking the security issues/manual action reports). If you do not see a downward trend nor receive another message from Google, you should be all set here.

To review organic performance, I suggest monitoring:

• Organic traffic (GA)

• Organic Visibility Trends/Rankings (SEMRush, Moz rank tracker)

• Google Search Console clicks and impressions (particularly for non-branded queries)

Hope this all helps!

[ViviCa1]

Thanks Joe. I will do that. Very helpful, I appreciate it!

[Joe_Stoffel]

You're welcome!