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Hey Dot Car -

So sorry this has happened to your wife's site. I didn't click through because of it being compromised, but here are my thoughts and a bunch of resources for you:

1. Put up a Temporarily Unavailable page. If you're on Wordpress, use a plugin like this: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maintenance-mode/

2. Change all FTP, database, and other passwords. If you don't know how to do this, you should contact your host to get them to help you (most have 24hr help).

3. Follow these steps from Google (I don't think you have to worry about the Open Redirects) - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=163634

4. Here's a really good list of things to check for Wordpress: http://ocaoimh.ie/2008/06/08/did-your-wordpress-site-get-hacked/

5. And an older one, but still good: http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2008/06/24/how-to-completely-clean-your-hacked-wordpress-installation/

Unfortunately, the hard thing about a hacked site is that they could have done a multitude of things. I suggest starting with the .htaccess file to make sure it was not hacked, then you'll have to dig deeper into the database. Have you been backing up your database frequently? I hope so. It will make restoring the site a lot easier (aka if you have the backup from two weeks ago, it would be better to lose a couple of weeks of content than to have a hacked site).

Otherwise, if the .htaccess file is not your issue, you'll have to clean the database, looking for things like<iframe%, <noscript%,="" or="" display%="" that="" may="" be="" in="" your="" wp-posts="" database="" table.<="" p=""></iframe%,>

I hope this helps.

John

Hi Utahtiger -

You won't be penalized in one sense for having your keywords in your URL again, but you may end up hurting your rankability for the term because you will have two pages optimized for those keywords. I think it would be better to focus on one of the pages (your homepage) for that keyword. This way you can point links to that page that are optimized for that term, instead of having to build links to two pages.

Don't hurt yourself with your onsite SEO. It's more important than a lot of people think

In short, a direct link is MUCH better than a link that redirects. Links that redirect through an internal URLdon't work like a 301 redirect. A 301 redirect will take you directly to the page. These redirects stall on the intermediary page for a few seconds. I'd bet no link juice is passed.

Google will follow the link, yes. But not in a "passing link equity" sort of following.

If it's a large website, I'd say it's definitely worth it for the referral traffic, but I wouldn't expect it to help your rankings.