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
-
keywords are not ranking as per the expectation and need site review too
Hello, Recently We have a taken a project " http://customerconnect-services.com/ " and are responsible for the Digital Marketing for the website. FYI, we have been following the best On-Page SEO practices ever since we took the project: Performing Keyword Research, Finalizing the Keywords,Using those in the Page-Title, Meta-Descriptions, Heading Tags and of course in the Content as per MOZ suggestions & SEO standards. But, we are unable to rank in first page; all the considered keywords have a ranking of 51+ which is a serious matter of concern for us. We have also checked whether the Domain / URL has been blacklisted, but it's not (Not even by Google). We are therefore unable to figure out what is going wrong even after following so many best practices to get the keywords a good ranking (1st & 2nd page of SERPs). Therefore I would like to request you to provide your expert opinions in this regard by checking what is it that we are not getting right. The website url is http://customerconnect-services.com/. As this is a high-priority issue for us & the client is a prestigious one of course, please help. Looking forward to hearing from you at the earliest. Thanks & Regards,
Technical SEO | | Harini.M
Harini2 -
Changing Domain Registrars have an affect on rankings?
So, I just wanted to move my domain from GoDaddy to NameCheap. I am still thinking about the move as I am not sure what affect it will have on my rankings. Has anyone here done it before? Did you see any drop in rankings? Also, while I was at it - I was thinking maybe I can add WhoisGuard too. I am not too paranoid about people getting my info from WhoIs, but does having a private Whois have an affect on ranking?
Technical SEO | | uzair0 -
How can I use a keyword based domain to rank for my existing site?
Hi everyone, From my understanding if your keywords are in your domain name it can help you rank for the keyword. My site www.pixelchefs.com was affected from the latest Google Algorithm changes, as I used my main site as a testing ground for all my back linking. Our site was a single page with Jquery slide, late February the same time with the Google algo changes we uploaded our new site, larger site with lots of pages and info. Result of that was that home page has PR3 and all other pages PR0. Well I don't really depend on Google for any work as most of my work comes from referrals.......but While searching for names for my private page I came across the domain name www.DesignOrlando.com, The specific keyword gets 22,210 view per month according to Google analytics and also contains part of the keyword for all the keywords I am after. I want to use the domain name for my main site but i am not sure what is the best way to forward the domain so Google can start reading my site as DesignOrlando.com Any Suggestions will be very appreciated.
Technical SEO | | alex_pixelchefs0 -
Iframe & pulling data from higher ranked domain
Hi, i have a question regarding iframes and SEO. I know iframes are bad practice but if you have a brand new domain and want to improve its ranking more quickly, you can host the website file in a higher authority domain, and load an iframe on the new domain. Is this true? For example, if I build and host the website files on www.masterdomain.com (domain authority 48), and then load the pages within an iframe on www.newdomain.com (domain authority 5), will that help increase the domain rank for www.newdomain.com? What are the advantages (if any) and disadvantages for each domain www.newdomain.com and www.masterdomain.com if we do this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Essentia0 -
Domain Masking with New Keyword-Rich Domains
Hello, friends. We have an ecommerce site and we also own several keyword-rich domains but haven't done anything with them yet. Is there any value in using domain masking to point them to either product pages or special landing pages on our primary ecommerce site? Here's an example: Primary site is widgetzone.com Keyword rich URL is acmewidget.com (which is totally blank and isn't indexed) It could point to our category page for Acme Widgets: widgetzone.com/category/acme-widgets or it could point to a new landing page: widgetzone.com/acme-widgets My concern is that because the keyword-rich URL hasn't been utilized at all there's really no point in redirecting it. I'm of the mind that it's either going to be ineffective at best or a duplicate content issue at worst. What do you guys think? As a follow-up, if we don't redirect these domains, what should we do with them? Just try to sell them off rather than create totally new sites?
Technical SEO | | jbreeden0 -
Best Way to change domain name
Hi, I have a driving instructor wordpress website called www.drivnglessonsbrightonandhove.co.uk, done a little link building. But before I start this properly, I want to change it to www.drivingbrighton.co.uk (as the first is too long to fit on the car etc!!!!) Whats the best way to do this? Is there a way to help keep its position in google as just got into top10 for different keywords?
Technical SEO | | Ant710 -
What pages of my site does Google rank as the most important?
If I type site:youtube.com into Google, are the results listed by what Google considers to be the most important pages of the site? If I change my sitemap should this order change? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Seaward-Group0 -
How long does it take open site explorer to recognize new links?
I'm building a steady link profile to one of my websites and the new links still haven't shown up in open site explorer even after 2 months. How long does it take OSE to recognize new backlinks?
Technical SEO | | C-Style2