When Your Site Is Down, Your Rankings Are Down Too
The first page of the search engine results is prime real estate. And every webmaster is trying to get their website to the top. But just when you think you finally landed a slice of that coveted real estate, you find your site’s ranking has dropped like a rock.
Sometimes, it means your site was hacked.
Why Hackers Hack
Often, they want to pick your pockets. They’re not just nerdy teenagers looking for an ego trip. No, they’re hacking to get rich quick, using your passwords, your identity, your banking information, your credit card information, and anything else they can get their hands on. That’s why they’re called cyber criminals.
Other times, they want to use your website or computer for their clandestine activities – pirated software, phony prescription drugs, pirated music – and pick other people’s pockets.
These cyber pirates opt to leech your computer juice or good reputation for their questionable activities instead of doing the hard work of building a reputable business themselves.
To do this, they identify a web based vulnerability, create a program that exploits that vulnerability, then send their program into the web to comb for unsuspecting sites that are affected by the vulnerability.
If your site is one of them, it gets attacked. Once the hacker has gained access to your site, they will either spam your site or install malware.
The Difference Between Spam and Malware
Hacks can take on two faces: spam and/or malware.
We’re all familiar with email spam. Who hasn’t gotten those emails posing as a well-known brand name that wants you to verify your information or claiming that a destitute widow’s son is dying in the hospital?
Well, website spam is text that is riddled with links to the scammer’s website. This kind of spamming can be happening without your knowledge. Many times, the code with spammy links is hidden deep in your website and is redirecting your site’s visitors to the scammer’s website.
Malware is malicious software that takes over your website or computer and uses it to spread the infection. Your computer may become part of a botnet, a zombie army of computers that unleash copious amounts of viruses and spam into cyberspace. These botnets then harvest sensitive financial and identity information from a broader range of victims.
How Your Site Becomes Vulnerable
It’s not enough to create a great website and assume it is a set it and forget it proposition. A healthy website requires continuous ongoing maintenance.
If you’re like many website owners, you’re using WordPress, a free open-source content management system. But that means that any vulnerability that is found in the WordPress core code, its themes or its plugins is posted publicly. Malicious cyberpunks love to lurk in the dark recesses of outdated WordPress plugins and themes.
If you happen to slack on the mundane task of installing updates, you may become the target of a malicious hacker. Outdated software is the number one reason that websites get hacked.
Your Site Can Get Blacklisted by Google
If Google thinks that your site is infected with malicious software, it will blacklist your site.
They call it quarantining, but regardless of the term, your site will be flagged or removed, which means your search rankings will plummet. This happens to around 10,000 websites daily. If your site’s been blacklisted, you can expect to lose about 95% of your traffic.
A new hacking threat has surfaced recently in the form of cloaked PDF pages. Sophos, a software security company, discovered hundreds of thousands of these on search results.
Cloaking is the cloak-and-dagger version of website hacking. Hackers used PDF files, which were possibly more trusted by Google’s algorithms, to embed spammy links that direct hapless visitors to unscrupulous websites.
Google is upping their aggressive war on spam by changing some of their search algorithms and rigorously removing hacked sites.
Security threats and search engine penalties are critical issues that can hurt your rankings and your bottom line. You need to avoid them from the outset.
Fixing and Preventing Hacks on Your Website
Fixing a hack can cost thousands of dollars, not to mention lost revenue from customers being afraid – or unable – to step foot on your site.
Unraveling the labyrinth of malware code from your website, rescuing or rebuilding your content, and getting de-blacklisted takes valuable time. Some brave webmasters tackle it themselves, but for most, it’s a task best left to professionals. It depends on your depth of computer savviness.
To prevent hacks, keep your site updated. You can dramatically decrease hack attacks if you update.
Backup your site regularly. Your data isn’t safe just because it’s online – it needs to be backed up just as much as your local desktop files.
Invest in some real-time monitoring. Updating and backing up your site won’t automatically insulate your website. A real-time monitoring service watches for malicious activity on your site and fixes and cleans it before you can say “boo”.
Summary
Take action now to prevent hacks – long before they have the nerve to take up residence and take your website rankings to the black hole of search engine blacklists.
As they say, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A high-caliber security and backup system will keep your website where it should be, on prime search engine real estate.
Quote by Brent Csutoras of Search Engine Journal: How to Safeguard Your Website from Hacking & Manual Actions
