The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • My Q&A
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. SEO and Digital Marketing Q&A Forum
    2. Categories
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Site hacked and now being spammed and rankings dropping

    Site hacked and now being spammed and rankings dropping

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3 3 332
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • Marketing_Today
      Marketing_Today last edited by

      I have a client's site that was hacked in December and a whole bunch of spam pages were created. We've since removed those pages and they serve a 404 error now.

      But I pick up a new link almost every day from a another spammy site linking back to the pages that were created.

      I'm updating the Disavow as I see the new links reported in ahrefs but what else can I do to stop these buggers and how can I recover rankings other than building links and creating content

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • OlegKorneitchouk
        OlegKorneitchouk last edited by

        Not much unfortunately. Just make sure the website is as secure as possible as hacked pages usually do more damage than bad links.

        If you continue to build quality content and links, the effects of the spammy backlinks will continue to diminish (until as some point, you will be considered an authority and negative SEO won't really work any longer). But until then, staying up to date on incoming backlinks and updating the disavow file is your best bet.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • rootwaysinc
          rootwaysinc last edited by

          I found your site in WordPress, check all your plugins and theme is up to date, i found some interesting articles that can help you. https://aw-snap.info/articles/spam-hack-wordpress.php and https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2008/04/my-sites-been-hacked-now-what.html

          or you can request google a review for you site https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/168328?hl=en

          Hope it helps 🙂

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post
          • Top-10 ranked site dropping in/out of Google index?
            willcritchlow
            willcritchlow
            0
            2
            86

          • Chinese Site Ranking for our brand name - possible hack?
            DirkC
            DirkC
            0
            8
            397

          • Huge drop in rankings for specialist life insurance site
            Carson-Ward
            Carson-Ward
            0
            8
            236

          • Site rankings dropped from ~15 to 500+ but Google says we were not penalized
            Tintanus
            Tintanus
            0
            4
            347

          • Site dropped rankings when changing host from US to Spain
            Catalyste
            Catalyste
            0
            3
            455

          • Why our site dropped in rank for a main keyword
            BobGW
            BobGW
            0
            4
            598

          • My site dropped in serp and backlinks ranked higher than it.
            saibose
            saibose
            0
            4
            1.1k

          • Newish site dropped out of rankings - is this normal?
            KeriMorgret
            KeriMorgret
            0
            7
            974

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Digital Marketers
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy