How to Work for Hacked Sites
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008If your site is hacked don’t worry about the consequences of the site being hacked below are some valuable points that you know when your site is hacked.
- Google will delete your website url from their index but will restore your URL in their database as soon as they confirm that your site is clean.
- Google will inform you that your site has been removed from the index and will also give you the reason for removal (i.e. the fact that you’ve been hacked and they don’t want your site to appear in Google’s SERPs till it’s cleaned up).
Note that exclusion from the index is just a temporary thing so don’t panic. Temporary removal would result in instant decrease of traffic but being retained in SERPs may result in long term loss of customers since word of your “insecure or low quality site” might get out
According to Google Webmaster Central if your site has been hacked you should immediately:
1. get your site offline
2. assess the damage
3. re-install the OS and make sure you install all the latest patches for software you news
4. restore your site
5. change ALL your passwords
6. get the site back online
Remember SEO is not just about ranking well in SERPs but is also about reputation building so look at the bright side, stop worrying, and work on your site’s security. If you’ve been hacked then clean up.


