Solution for bunch of ?blackhole= backlinks generated in GSC

Thanks for sharing this, but it should not be necessary because the plugin already forbids bots (like Googlebot) from crawling the hidden blackhole trigger link. So any issue with otherwise “good” bots getting blocked suggests there may be some cache plugin or similar working on site. Normally there are no issues with how blackhole handles bots, but page caching prevents dynamic plugins from working correctly.

I hope this helps. Thanks again for sharing, and let me know if I can provide any further information.

Sorry, but this IS necessary since I found several links to my website, such as blackhole=somenumber indexed by Google.
I want to have a caching plugin on my website, why shouldn’t I?

• This reply was modified 4 months ago by drmrgood.
• This reply was modified 4 months ago by drmrgood.

It’s fine to have caching or whatever you want on your site. The thing is though, any sort of page caching prevents dynamic plugins like Blackhole from working properly. This is explained in the plugin docs, home page, installation guide, readme.txt, plugin settings page, and Help tab documentation.

Updated to add: That is why you are getting blackhole=somenumber in the search results. Because page caching is breaking normal plugin functionality. The solution is to either delete Blackhole (and then reset/clear site cache) or remove any page caching on the site.

• This reply was modified 4 months ago by Jeff Starr.
• This reply was modified 4 months ago by Jeff Starr.
• This reply was modified 4 months ago by Jeff Starr.

But I don’t want to remove Blackhole neither I want to remove caching plugin.
So, for my needs my solution is perfect.

If it works for you then great. Hopefully this thread will help anyone else who may want to do the same. Cheers @drmrgood.

Hello, i have same problem. The thing is i removed plugin i think a month ago. My search console filled with these “?blackhole=xxxxxxxx”

Btw when i install plugin my whole wp-admin starts lagging but thats different problem i guess.

@silversky99 is there any sort of cache plugin on site?

W3 Total Cache current one, previous was LiteSpeed. I changed hosting.

Okay thanks. So as explained in the plugin documentation, page-cache plugins prevent dynamic plugins like Blackhole from working correctly. The solution for sites running page-cache plugins, is to remove Blackhole AND also clear/reset/empty the cache for the site. That enables search engines to crawl the correct content for your site. So reset/clear your site cache and should be good to go.

Doesn’t look like its going away. Its been more than a month i cleared cache several times. Just in case i cleared cache again, including Cloudflare. My search console filled with these(There are thousands). I will add above code to .htaccess and also will add rule to robots.txt.

Understood. Assuming you followed the recommended steps in my previous reply, there must be something else involved, maybe another plugin, or maybe something the theme is doing. Some troubleshooting can help to narrow it down. I would be glad to provide a free troubleshooting guide if it might be useful for you.

Also note it hasn’t been “more than a month”, as the issue was reported only nine days ago. Once the recommended steps are followed (removing plugin and then clearing/resetting cache), it does take some time, usually more than nine days, depending on number of indexed pages, crawl rate, and other factors. Please have patience as search engines can take some time.

Also, for this:

“I will add above code to .htaccess and also will add rule to robots.txt”

The plugin does not require or recommend any .htaccess rules. But yes the prescribed robots rules are essential while the plugin is active, and may be useful even after the plugin is removed, to help the search engines focus on the fresh, re-cached correct page content.

Again: if you have not yet removed Blackhole as recommended, you’ll want to do that now. And then, as explained previously, *after* the plugin is removed, *then* clear/reset any page cache on site. After those steps, it is impossible for this plugin to have any effect on your site.

I hope this helps, let me know if I can provide any further information.

Sorry, i wasn’t clear enough. What i meant i removed plugin in august i believe. That’s why i wrote it’s been more than a month.

That’s okay no problem. If you removed the plugin a month ago and also cleared cache since then as explained there is no way this plugin can have any effect on your site. So best advice would be to investigate other plugins, theme functions, server config, and so forth.