Site hacked in Jan. Redeveloped new site. Still not ranking. Should we change domain?
-
Our top ranking site in the UK was hacked at the end of 2014.
http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/
The site was the subject of a manual spam action from Google. After several unsuccessful attempts to clean it up, using Securi.net and reinstating old versions of the site, changing passwords etc. we took the decision to redevelop the site. We also changed hosting provider as we had received absolutely no support from them whatsoever in resolving the issue.
So far we have:
- Removed the old website files off the server
- Developed a new website having implemented 301's for all the old URL's (except the spam ones)
- Submitted a reconsideration request for the manual spam action, which was accepted.
- Disavowed all the spammy inbound links through Webmaster Tools
- Implemented custom URL parameters through Google to not index the SPAM URLs ( which were using parameters)
Our organic traffic is down by 63% compared to last year, and we are not ranking for most of our target keywords any longer.
Is there anything that I am missing in the actions I have taken so far? We were advised that at this stage changing domain and starting again might be the way to go. However the current domain has been used by us since 2007, so it would be a big call.
Any advice is appreciated, thanks.
-
Hi Kate,
Thanks for your message:
SPAM was identified in October 2014, so we asked our hosting provider to re-install a clean backup of the site. We didn't have a clean offline version, so we were using automatic backups stored on the server. We changed FTP and CMS passwords.We did this on 3 separate occasions in October, but the issue remained.
In November, we subscribed to Securi.net and had them scan and clean the site. They did this twice, but the spam remained.
By January 2015, all the content keywords for the site were showing as Chinese, so we took the decision to re-develop the site on a new CMS and move hosting, as our hosting provider had provided no assistance whatsoever.
The new site launched in March 2015 - we did all the 301s etc. that are required when re-developing a site.
The Manual SPAM action was also applied in March. There is no user-generated content on the site.
We submitted the reconsideration request on 4th of April and it was accepted on April 17th.
I started to disavow the links and work with parameters to ask Google to no-index the URLs using parameters at the start of May and removed the old files from the old server on 3rd of June.
At the end of August, I went through all the remaining records for SPAM URLs returning 404s and amended the robots.txt to disallow the remaining SPAM directories. I also ran the google Site:ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk search and added all the remaining SPAM URLs to the robots.txt and Google URL removal tool.
I'm really not sure what else I can do. So we are thinking of starting again, but are reluctant to do so. Is there anything else you can think of that I can do.
All advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks
Sue
-
I actually wouldn't change the domain unless you are doing it for another reason. It's been around since 2007 and I am reluctant to tell you to dump it in favor of a new one. Changing your domain sets everything fresh and you'll most likely seen a bigger loss in organic traffic.
When was the reconsideration request accepted? Can you give us a timeline of everything that happened?
-
Hi Matt,
We are leaning towards changing domain. I can't find anyone to argue towards keeping it. However, I did find some URLs that still haven't been removed from the index, through the site:ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk Google search function. I was going to use the URL removal tool in search console to address that.
Do you think I should wait a while after doing that to see if it has any impact or go ahead and start from scratch?
Any thoughts are welcome, it's good to get a few opinions before deciding.
Sue
-
Hi galwaygirl!
Did everything get sorted out?
-
Hi galwaygirl.
I'm going to be PMing you my thoughts as I've taken a bit of a peek at your backlink profile and my advice is specific only to your scenario and might be taken wrong and applied to others incorrectly if anyone else read it.
Dave
-
Hi Dave,
Thanks for your message.
The manual notice that we got was 'Hacked Site' and the notice applied to spam rather than Malware.
-
Which manual action notice did you get? I'm assuming from what you noted that it's the user-generated spam notice but thought it better to check before replying. The only other one I can guess might apply was the unnatural links penalty. If it was the unnatural link penalty then you'll have to wait for the next Penguin update but if you can confirm the penalty I'm happy to look into it further.
Regards.
Dave
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does Google Still support Hyphened Domains for Exact Match or not?
Does Google Still support Hyphened Domains for Exact Match or not? For Example: www.my-key-word.com this domain is exact match for "my keyword" or not??
Technical SEO | | hammadrafique0 -
How do sites manage to rank better with no fresh content
hi, trying to work out why there are lots of sites that are ranking better than me. Our site www.in2town.co.uk has always been on the first page and for a long time we were number one in google for the term lifestyle magazine as well as being on the first page for other keywords. Our site is www.in2town.co.uk We had a site upgrade a few months ago and since then we have seen our rankings have dropped like a lead balloon. I do not understand why sites such as the following seem to rank better than me for the word lifestyle magazine http://www.lifestyle.org/ http://www.24sevenlifestyle.com/ http://www.lifestylesmagazine.com/website/ http://motabilitylifestyle.co.uk/ http://www.alifestylemagazine.com/ if anyone can help me understand what i am doing wrong and why my rankings have gone out of the window then it would be a huge help.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Can someone tell me how in the heck this site is ranking?
Just saw a huge update on the Serps for "SEO Company" and "Seo Firm " and this site has tons of big Google no's no's going to it. www.seospecialists.co it has links coming from Porn and Gambling sites. It is heavily over optimized for both keywords. I won't cry the sky is falling[SEO is broke] but I am curious to know why Google thinks they are worthy to rank that high.
Technical SEO | | MattieMac0 -
No manual spam actions found - still my site does not rank
I noticed it on the 1st of October 2012 - that all my rankings disappeared - i filed a reconsideration request w google and i got this - No manual spam actions found. I have no idea why my site would have been subject to an algo change which made my rankings completely go away - i have not used spam, not used any kind of linkbuilding. Can you guys look at my site and see if you have any ideas: http://tinyurl.com/9a5k38u Thank you, Cary
Technical SEO | | CMTM0 -
Looking to rank a .co.uk domain in the USA
Hello Mozzers, One of my clients sites is "domain.co.uk" and they are looking to rank in the USA with the same domain. They are looking to change host (for unrelated reasons) and I think it may be beneficial for them to get hosting in the USA. Essentially the business is moving to the USA but they want to retain their domain name as they cannot get their hands on a domain with their company name in that is .com / .net / .org etc. . . I know that the .co.uk domain will adversely affect click through rates in the states, but there seems to be no way around this if they want their retain the company name as their domain name. Would American based hosting help them rank better for searches from the USA or is the benefit of this negligible? Net66
Technical SEO | | net660 -
Deleted Old Site - Relaunched on Same Domain
Now I have a bunch of links that are dead. (45 to be exact) What should I do? Rebuild the links, 301 redirect them to the homepage, 410 them? I didn't get a lot of external traffic from the links (maybe ~500 uniques/mo). Of that traffic, most of the users would bounce, my SEO wasn't very good so the content they received wasn't as relevant as it could have been. I'm not really worried about losing the traffic, but rather minimizing any penalty from google.
Technical SEO | | winefolly1 -
Will rankings for my micro site rank better if I 301 redirect it to my main site?
This is my first time asking so I will try to be as clear as possible. Ok, I have a micro site that is an (exact match domain) and the domain is a couple 3-4 years old and ranks very well for several search terms. The main two terms it ranks for are like this. houses for rent in XXXXX XXXXX homes for rent (XXXXX equals a city name) The issue is this site has no backlinks, zero advanced SEO, I only did basic optimization to it when i set the site up. Even site structure, url structure all are not good.
Technical SEO | | Robbie8299
The only page I have ever even seen rank is the main root url. But with all that the site does really good in the top 1-2 results for key search terms. Now, I have a main site that is a very big site that has steadily been climbing in search terms every month with great backlinks, optimized for the city and all.
It currently ranks on second page for the listed search terms listed above. What I want to do is 301 redirect this microsite to my city page on my main site that is much better optimized for the key city terms.
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain" (mymicrosite.com) to my city page that looks like this. www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX If I do this will Google rank my main URL city page as well as it ranks this microsite with zero links, seo, etc, etc. What happens if it does not? Will I be able to turn off the 301 redirect and keep the microsite rankings? My main reason for wanting this is I want this city page to rank well and I only want to optimize one site instead of both. Any help would be great!0 -
Recently revamped site structure - now not even ranking for brand name, but lots of content - what happened? (Yup, the site has been crawled a few times since) Any ideas? Did I make a classic mistake? Any advise appreciated :)
I've completely disappeared off Google - what happened? Even my brand name keyword does not bring up my website - I feel lost, confused and baffled on what my next steps should be. ANY advice would be welcome, since there's no going back to the way the site was set up.
Technical SEO | | JeanieWalker0