Possible Pharma Hack and Google Indexing Question

  • Hello, All…I have a client who’s site has possibly fallen victim to the pharma hack. She was informed by users who searched for the site on Google that some of the pages (not all) were pointing to pharmaceutical links. Not ever having dealt with this before, I immediately had her change her passwords. I contacted the hosting company (GoDaddy), who insisted the site is not hacked, but that a SEO plugin was to blame. They had me deactivate and delete the two SEO plugins on the site. After doing so, the links no longer take users to the pharmaceutical sites, but they still show up on Google as such.

    To date, I have done the following:
    – deleted the .htaccess file and generated a new one
    – searched through the typically vulnerable core folders/files (wp-config, wp-admin, uploads, theme headers/footers) and found no suspicious code.
    – scanned the site (Sucuri plugin, Sucuri Sitecheck, ManageWP Security, VirusTotal, Google Transparency Report), and they are all giving the site a clean bill of health.

    When searching with site:swanafl.org, you can clearly see pages that are displaying pharma links. However, the links take you to the correct pages on Swana FL’s site.

    Is it possible the site is clean but that certain pages continue to be indexed by Google as pharma links? If so, how can I fix this? In truth, I have trouble wrapping my head around how Google works in regards to search results, indexing, etc. Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated as the organization is actively registering users for upcoming conferences. Thank you in advance for your help!!!

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

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  • Is it possible the site is clean but that certain pages continue to be indexed by Google as pharma links? If so, how can I fix this?

    Yes, it is possible. You will have to use the Google Console to crawl again your site.

    Thread Starter aluettin

    (@aluettin)

    Thanks, @a2hostingrj for the response. The client received an email today from GoDaddy letting her know they detected malware and deleted it. So now I’m taking steps to harden the site security, as well as starting the process to have Google crawl the site again.

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