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Google search links go to another site

by donhx
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Any help on this would be appreciated.

1. I do a regular Google search for my site articles.

2. My articles appear on Goggle as expected and I click on one like a person would do.

3. It takes me to a "Cheap Canadian Pharmaceutical site," not my own site.

Most of the time, the Google entry looks like it should. Sometimes there is "Pharmaceutical" key words injected into the Google search description. Some article links take me to my site as expected, but most take me to the Pharmaceutical site.

I contacted Google starting a month ago showing them samples of the hijacked links in their search results, but there is no reply from them or change in my search results.

Any ideas how to cure this problem?
#google #links #search #site
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    You've been hacked.

    If it's a Wordpress site search the theme/plugins for hidden base64 code.

    The first thing you need to do is look at the Google cache (text version) of your ranked page.
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    • Profile picture of the author donhx
      It is a WP site, Yukon. I have used Anti-Malware/BruteForce and WPfence and they seemed to keep out malware.

      Just now I ran Exploit Scanner, and it returned so many false positives that it wasn't helpful. Lots of "often used legitimately" in results.

      Can I ask 2 other questions?

      1. Are all Base64 entries bad? I see some like: $ unencoded_ string = base64_decode ($encoded_string) (spaces added) but have no way to know if they are legitimate or not.

      2. You mention I need to clean my Google cache. How do you do that?

      Thank you for your help.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by donhx View Post

        1. Are all Base64 entries bad? I see some like: $ unencoded_ string = base64_decode () (spaces added) but have no way to know if they are legitimate or not.
        If the base64 links are inside of a free theme or plugin they're hiding something. I would consider those bad themes/plugins.

        If it's a theme/plugin you've bought then it could be a legitimate base64 link to try & fight off people stealing the theme/plugin, like requiring a paid password/key, etc...






        Originally Posted by donhx View Post

        2. You mention I need to clean my Google cache. How do you do that?
        I meant does anything look wrong on the Google cache (text version), links with spammy anchor-text, etc...

        The only way to clean up a Google cache is to first fix the live webpage then reindex/cache the problem page/s.

        ********************

        When you click the link in Google SERPs for your ranked page it's redirecting either by an on-page meta redirect (with no timer on the meta tag) or a 301/302 redirect on the host server.

        If you check that Google cache & see your own webpage that means it's most likely an on-page meta redirect which is in the HTML source code & can be done from a Wordpress theme file or a WP plugin file. Free themes/plugins are easy targets, it's not really hacking since the webmaster has to install the problem theme/plugin.

        On the other hand If the Google cache redirects to another domain it's a more serious problem, the problem (301/302 redirect) is happening directly on the server host backend which means someone has access to your host.

        I would check the WP theme/plugin files after looking at the cache. Spammers/hackers do not like to work (who does, right?), they'll look for the easiest way into a site (free downloads).

        Also remember that it's rare for a theme to have been created by a hacker, they usually take other peoples themes & add things like base64 links, redirects, etc... then they host the free theme/plugin so traffic will download the problem files/themes/plugins.

        BTW, it has to be the text version of the cache, the full version of the cache will not show spammy base64 links.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    An easy way to check If the Wordpress theme or any plugins is the problem is to follow these steps in this exact order:
    1. Activate the default Woordpress theme
    2. Turn Off every single Wordpress plugin
    3. Close all your browsers
    4. Clear your browser cache/history (I use CCleaner (free))
    5. Search Google for your keyword & click your link in the SERPs

    If this fixes the redirect problem then you know 100% it's a Wordpress theme or plugin problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Power
    if after trying Yukon's suggestion you can't get rid of the unwanted redirects, you should contact your web host's support. Some malicious code got into your site's code either through a hack or by installing infected plugins/themes - that's a surety.
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    ONE HOUR INDEXING - STOP WASTING MONEY ON LINKS GOOGLE NEVER FINDS
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    • Profile picture of the author shahid83
      Please share your URL that has the problem so I can look into it. Seems like some malicious code has been injected either in your pages or in your database.
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    I've found using Sucuri SiteCheck - Free Website Malware Scanner to be pretty good at detecting any malware.
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    • Profile picture of the author donhx
      Originally Posted by UMS View Post

      I've found using Sucuri SiteCheck - Free Website Malware Scanner to be pretty good at detecting any malware.

      Yes, Peter the free Sucuri checker is good. The only problem is that it tells you the problem, but they want to charge you $99 per site to fix it. Less per site if you have many sites like me, but overall it's expensive.

      After getting a clue or two from Yukon and getting an idea about what was going on, I installed 3 free plugins that identified the problem and fixed them automatically or showed me exactly where to go in the code to remove the malware.

      I used:

      Anti-Malware and Brute-Force Security by ELI
      Exploit Scanner
      Wordfence Security

      I also installed NinjaFirewall

      My site appears to be free from the infection. Links on Google are all good, but a few titles/descriptions there are still bad. I have resubmitted it to Google via Webmaster Tools and will see if they get back to normal in the next few weeks.

      The soaksoak_ru problem was a time-consuming process the first time, and the injections were worse. I have had WP sites for many years and never guessed I would get attacked like that. However, I have now "hardened" all 10 of my sites.

      I learned a valuable lesson I should have known before: Prevention is better than cure when it comes to fending off malware attacks.
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