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This Was A Real Eye-opener

by tboneman
6 replies
Just had an enlightening experience that's very troubling.

We have about a dozen sites up, most of which we don't visit very often.

I made a quick tour this morning and discovered on one site that someone removed the Google Adsense ad on the home page and substituted a rotating series of ads which have nothing to do with us or our website.

I have no clue how it was done. Didn't even know it was possible.

Is there any way to lock a site so that no one can change it except the owner?

Will appreciate any suggestions. Thanks
#eyeopener #real
  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    Your FTP account had probably been hacked. Change your password to a more secure one before trying to fix your site/s.
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    • Profile picture of the author ss442
      Check the source code on the hacked sites and check "change records" on your web host. Everything that occurs on your website is date and time recorded.

      There may even be a way to track down the culprits. A lot of this stuff has been coming from off shore-Asian and former Soviet Republic countries. There is little one can do about these jerks but harden your site. There are ways.

      Good luck,

      Ed
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      Ed Sunderland

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      • Profile picture of the author Devid Farah
        Google now allows third party partners to use their ad spots if they do not have any advertisers of their own to fill that spot.

        Is your niche a relatively popular niche?

        If not, the trouble might be that Google is having a hard time finding people who are targeting those keywords for that ad campaigns.

        Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author techvic
    I found out the hard way not to use insecure passwords on anything. Now I use Security Guide for Windows - Random Password Generator to generate all my passwords. It saves time and has worked well so far.
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  • Profile picture of the author butch04
    I would changed your passwords.

    Then look at the files themselves as they may have some code in them that needs to be removed if someone placed a virus or whatever on your site.

    Also contact your hosting provider and find out what steps you can take to increase how safe your site is.
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  • Profile picture of the author tboneman
    Thanks for the comeback guys. I'll be checking with Go-Daddy to see what they think might have happened. The site has to do with 'walking shoes' so it's not too far off the beaten path. One of the replacement rotating ads was for Jillian whatsherface and exercise/weight loss. This may be a Google third party ad but there's nothing in or around the ad to tell me that. I re-uploaded the site files and the replacement ads went away. Google adsense is back. Let's see if the replacements return.
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