I host my website on a shared server at apollohosting.com. On 1/1/08 I noticed I was not appearing on Google's organic search results. I used to be on the 1st page, now I don't even show up. I finally realized someone had hacked into apollohosting's server and put all kinds of spam crap onto every page of my website - stuff like cialis, viagra, redirects, etc.... this was hidden text that you wouldn't notice just by looking at the site, you had to "view source" then you saw it.
I have taken down the site and uploaded it so now it is clean again. But I am sure I was banned as my site was spidered by Google and taken off their results, but... this was not my fault, I can even show proof. Nevertheless, what should I do, who can I contact at Google, is there an email address, a phone number, etc...? If anyone knows any one or any way to address this, please let me know. I have even noticed that my paid advertising on Adwords placement has dropped way down in the rankings.
Any advice, names or contacts at Google, etc... are greatly appreciated. Also I need the name of a good hosting company for our site, it is not ecommerce, just a regular frontpage website.
I have posted my website url in my member information. My member name is Bryan Alan.
Thanks for any help. Right now the site should look clean, I took down the one that was hacked yesterday and saved it just in case.
I need to change hosting companies right away and need to find a good one if you can suggest one. Changing domain names is not really an option, it is on everything we have, business cards, mailers, envelopes, letterhead, etc.... not to mention everywhere we advertise, AdWords, yahoo, etc....
Also, it is our company name.
We got hacked about 5 days ago, and now it is fixed. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for the responses. What are backlinks? Sorry for the dumb question. I may not have been banned but I don't show up on any of the Google searches that I used to. The main one was "san diego movers" when searching with a San Diego IP address. I always came up on the 1st page, now since this happened I don't even come up on the 15th page. Yet my competitors still come up on the same page. Thanks for looking at my site.
Remember I used to rank very well for "san diego movers" and "san diego moving company".
Also, thanks for the Godaddy suggestion, I will check them out. I have to change hosting companies next week for sure.
Not banned, your site is still indexed. Your site could have been penalised, sign up here and make a reconsideration request explaining everything, if penalised i am sure you'll get your ranking back.
I was wondering if we could maybe expand on this subject because the idea of a site being hacked just freaks me out.
For Bryan and other "amateur" webmasters such as myself and others, I was wondering if any professionals out there had any tips as far as how to PREVENT the hacking of ones site so that it doesn't happen again.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to get backlinks, I would love to hear them.
I did decide to change my hosting company to ixwebhosting. I spoke to them and they seem to have all the good things I need including tech support 24/7. Has anyone heard anything negative about them?
dman_2007 - I did request a reconsideration like you suggested, I hope that helps. Thank you for that.
stacy131 - what happened is that my site was hosted on a shared server at apollohosting. This server which was supposed to be safe was somehow hacked into and every page of every website that is hosted on it was filled with spam that you couldn't even see until you looked at the site and "viewed source" then all this cialis and viagra and other crap showed up. So thanks to them it looks like I got screwed. I can't blame Google but it wasn't my fault either I didn't even know about it. I could not have done anything to prevent their shared server from an attack that if I wouldn't have told them about they wouldn't even know about. I am fuming. It took me years to get to the first page of the organic search now I am not even on the 15th page.
Aw, don't be so upset. Just as easily as Google gets you on page 15, I'm sure they can get you on page 1 again as soon as their crawl again. You're lucky you noticed it within just a few days.
But look on the bright side - what if you tried even harder, worked on even more content, put in even more investments and then they hacked you? Maybe this is an opportunity to take your company to the next level and you can't do that on a shared server.
It's a new year, remember? New opportunity to [fill in the blank]
Thanks for the nice words stacy131. I am about to change hosting companies to ixwebhosting, but I think they also do shared servers, what is the other option? Our site is pretty small but I need to have safety too.
Thanks for the nice words stacy131. I am about to change hosting companies to ixwebhosting, but I think they also do shared servers, what is the other option? Our site is pretty small but I need to have safety too.
Thanks.
Bryan Alan
I have used ixwebhosting, seem to be a pretty nice company to wrk with good support, can't really say they won't be cracked, can happen to anyone. One thing you can do no matter who your host is, is to keep an eye on your site contantly, preferably get someone to look at your site security wise, so that at least you're safe from your end.
It concerns some security issues with Frontpage websites being wide open when not configured securely (if this is at all possible, I don't know, last time I used FP was in 2001). I recommend this because these hacks you speak of may have walked in through your own front door, and could happen when you set up else where too.
The hacks in question concern the availability of your site's administration passwords for publishing your website to the server. The _vti_* style directories should NOT be visible to the general webvisitor, or search engines which index these (hence the Google Hacks video). You can often prevent access to these directories using a properly crafted robots.txt to tell search engines to ignore the directories, and proper permissions set on the directories to prevent unwanted guests from browsing them.
Since FP is windows based (mostly) I cannot offer any help with that, I use Unix based systems myself.
All the best
Last edited by greenfinger : 01-11-2008 at 02:50 AM.
Thank you so much for the responses. What are backlinks? Sorry for the dumb question. I may not have been banned but I don't show up on any of the Google searches that I used to. The main one was "san diego movers" when searching with a San Diego IP address. I always came up on the 1st page, now since this happened I don't even come up on the 15th page. Yet my competitors still come up on the same page. Thanks for looking at my site.
Remember I used to rank very well for "san diego movers" and "san diego moving company".
Also, thanks for the Godaddy suggestion, I will check them out. I have to change hosting companies next week for sure.
Help! I have been banned but it wasn't my fault
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