The case of the attempted server hacking and it's effect on SEO

[Martin_S]

Since relaunch earlier this year, we've had patches where our site has failed to load. It's happened every so often, but, until I receive the server logs from the company who hosts the site, I won't know exactly when this issue has occurred. Until now, we've only noticed it when someone in the company has tried, and failed, to access the site.

Again, it happened today. After hassling our developers/hosting firm for a conclusive answer as to why, it emerged that their server (perhaps our site in particular because of the nature of our business) had been the target of an attempted hacking. We've now concluded that every time our site has messed around like this, it's because of a possible hack.

Would anyone in SEOmoz Land be able to tell me if this is going to have a negative impact for our SEO and site performance? Would search engines be able to tell if a potential hack is, or was, occurring? Would we then be penalised? Please feel free to elaborate on the hacking process in general, too, if you can because this is the first time I've encountered it.

Thanks

[ReneReinholdt]

1stly Google might notice some hacked pages and flag them as potentially harmful. But your main problem is these:

• potental client will most likely not come back if they tried once and failed
• google might have tried to access a page and had looong loading times or a server error when trying to load a page
• when a client loads a page and the server is under a DoS or simular attack the server will slow down and the page load speed will do the same resulting in bad loading speeds.

All of the above and more that I probably forgot will harm your SEO efforts and end user experience, harming trust.

some of the above you should be able to see in GWT and GA. in particular the loadtimes and HTTP error codes, bounce rates ex.