Server was banned, now all sites have dropped ranking.

[MarkNWD]

Hi, I'm new here

I look after half a dozen sites on the one server. Early January three of those Wordpress sites were hacked and reported for phishing. All sites have been cleaned and the report(s) removed but they are all ranking much lower than previously. I also added IP block to the sites to limit the traffic to Australia and New Zealand as these are all local small businesses.

I checked IP reputation for the server and it is neutral, with no blacklisting showing. I checked with the hosting company and they have no bans or warnings on the server either. These sites were ranking ok, usually first or second page but they have all dropped down to page 5 or worse now. Is there anything else I should check? I have resubmitted the sites to Google a few days ago.

Any guidance greatly appreciated. I a web designer so I know a little about SEO but this is beyond me.

[HostColor]

Unfortunately WordPress is always vulnerable if the installation isn't properly managed. I would suggest you to check if there are any links to your websites for spammy domains, phishing domain links farms or any other domains and website of poor quality.  If there are any, go to Google and use "disavow backlinks" option.

Any news releases related to the websites would also help. It is not a bad idea to create a publication in your Blog (if any) that explains how a compromised WordPress installations resulted in a drop in SERP.

Consider using this WordPress plugin - https://wordpress.org/plugins/meta-tag-manager/

A professional review of the WordPress installations by any 3rd party would also help, as you might be missing something. Finally, consider using a Managed Website (Managed Wordpress) service.