Site Hack Cleanup Question

by 6 replies
7
I think I am putting this in the right section of the forum...

I am doing a site hack mop up. After removing the inserted files the url's go to a
404 page. What do I do about that? Google does not like a lot of 404's in a site.

Should I do a redirect? Can that just be the file name, redirected to the index and
all the pages that were in it would automatically be redirected to the index?

Thanks.
#search engine optimization #cleanup #hack #site
  • Banned


    If you're talking about the 404s being unwanted hacked pages where a hacker created the pages/URLs I would run Screaming Frog & remove all instances of internal links pointing to the hacked pages, delete the hacked pages & leave it at that. Google will eventually reindex the good pages.

    If the hacked internal pages were once legit webpages (before being hacked) I would simply revert back to the original legit content & leave it at that.

    Obviously scan the entire site (Screaming Frog) & make sure no outbound spam links or unwanted redirects exist on the site.

    If the entire site is a huge spamfest clean everything up & build a new/fresh xml sitemap, submit the good sitemap to Webmaster Tools to help speed up Google reindexing pages.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks Yukon.

      I had three files of html pages inserted into a wordpress site. So you are saying that I have
      all those 404 pages will not affect how Google looks at my site. I had read they do not like
      a lot of 404 pages, that it looks like a lower quality site.

      I will check into screaming frog. I think I have it all cleaned up. But always good to double
      check.
      • [1] reply
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • It's true that Google do not like 404 error. But what you are planning to do is perfect I guess, Redirecting it to something else is a better way to put it.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned

      In this case it does not make sense to redirect a hacker created page/URL to a legit page/URL. Let the hacker created page/URL die & move on like the hack never happened.

      Like I said earlier, clean up all traces of the hack, build a fresh xml sitemap for the site, submit the sitemap to Webmaster Tools, go eat a sandwich. Google will self correct the SERPs for any unwanted hacker created SERP titles/descriptions/URLs.
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