28 ms·

The Day Google Erased Me From the Internet

13 points by markbao 18y ago

geofffox 18y ago
Good grief I feel your pain! I had the same thing happen to me. Some hacker inserted a single randomly named php and new .htaccess file in every directory on my Movable Type blog - www.geofffox.com. We’re talking thousands of directories. The .htaccess file was amazingly clever. It sprung into action on 404 errors, and only from search engine referrers. I originally thought it was Google’s problem, because I couldn’t make the pages appear by typing them in. By the time I’d begun the cleanup, Google thought I had over 330,000 pages (actually around 16k) on my site. My most cited keywords had to do with porn and game cracks. The hack left all .html files in a single directory. My real pages are all php, making it easier to eliminate the scourge from search engines. It took a long time. Since cleaning up my act in January, my traffic is down by 2/3! MSN Live is referring more traffic my way than Google. I am still a PR4, but with little to show for that. That’s one reason I’ve cited my site on this comment and hope it’s not ‘nofollowed’ out. I’m hoping for some Google love. My biggest complaint is, Google is not answerable to anyone. You can fill out forms, and beg (and I begged), but Google will neither tell you what you did wrong or how to rehabilitate yourself. I had to find those out on my own. They have gone beyond a simple search engine. If you’re not on Google, you don’t exist!
- Hexstream 18y ago
  What's with the new "I screw up and then blame mighty Google" pattern?! I don't know, my reaction to your situation would be something like: "Oh fuck, I really need to learn how to secure my stuff properly! Thankfully Google prevented my mistake from affecting everyone else also!"
  - Tichy 18y ago
    The problem is that there really is no way to make a 100% secure site.
    - pmjordan 18y ago
      Indeed, but if your site is important to you, you should probably be monitoring its health. I mean, everyone makes backups, right. right? Doing the occasional (1x/week?) check on the files that changed between backups is pretty straightforward and will give you a good idea of whether there's foul play going on.
mojuba 18y ago
Also... be careful when buying domain names that were used previously. I once picked up an just-expired domain name that I thought was nice and then it took me 2 years (!) to get Google to index it. I don't know what the problem was, because archive.org showed it was just a generic search page previously. At that time I registered a company with the same name and I didn't want to give it up. 2 years wasted struggling for an identity! (Fortunately my business did not depend much on search.)
scrod 18y ago
This is why you should not rely on search engines for revenue. Create a name for yourself in a community mediated by humans instead of search bots.
- delano 18y ago
  And that's why you always leave a note.
tx 18y ago
... But I’m a blogger, web developer and evangelist. I don’t know the security side as well as I should and I don’t have time to make sure everything is rock solid ... Wow, nice to know that the basics of web security isn't in his understanding of web developer's job and apparently beyound what an "evangelist" should care about. If web developers "do not have time" to secure their own shit, why would the world need them? Besides, what does he want? Google kills thousands of fake spamming sites an hour, how on earth would they implement his idea of "heads up warning" before wiping them off the index? And what would Microsoft/Yahoo do? The same goddamn thing, because spamming sites degrade search quality which hurts us all in the end.
greyman 18y ago
The title is very misleading, Google erased him from their index, not from the internet. I don't know why exactly, but a lot of webmasters thinks that somehow Google have to include them in the index, otherwise it's unjust towards them. But they don't have to, it's their property and they really can include or exclude websites as they wish, and it's just their good will that they publicize some of the criteria for getting in.
wallflower 18y ago
I think this article just shows how co-dependent some of us are on the network. Other bloggers leaving comments in this post showing empathy "how horrible" it must have been. I have an addictive personality and it scares me how much you can live your life on the net. Which is why I try to avoid twitter/RSS readers/FB. Remember when Angela in the movie The Net (played by Speed's Sandra Bullock) had her identity erased by the bad guys?

13 points by markbao 18y ago

Good grief I feel your pain! I had the same thing happen to me. Some hacker inserted a single randomly named php and new .htaccess file in every directory on my Movable Type blog - www.geofffox.com. We’re talking thousands of directories. The .htaccess file was amazingly clever. It sprung into action on 404 errors, and only from search engine referrers. I originally thought it was Google’s problem, because I couldn’t make the pages appear by typing them in. By the time I’d begun the cleanup, Google thought I had over 330,000 pages (actually around 16k) on my site. My most cited keywords had to do with porn and game cracks. The hack left all .html files in a single directory. My real pages are all php, making it easier to eliminate the scourge from search engines. It took a long time. Since cleaning up my act in January, my traffic is down by 2/3! MSN Live is referring more traffic my way than Google. I am still a PR4, but with little to show for that. That’s one reason I’ve cited my site on this comment and hope it’s not ‘nofollowed’ out. I’m hoping for some Google love. My biggest complaint is, Google is not answerable to anyone. You can fill out forms, and beg (and I begged), but Google will neither tell you what you did wrong or how to rehabilitate yourself. I had to find those out on my own. They have gone beyond a simple search engine. If you’re not on Google, you don’t exist!

Hexstream 18y ago
What's with the new "I screw up and then blame mighty Google" pattern?! I don't know, my reaction to your situation would be something like: "Oh fuck, I really need to learn how to secure my stuff properly! Thankfully Google prevented my mistake from affecting everyone else also!"
- Tichy 18y ago
  The problem is that there really is no way to make a 100% secure site.
  - pmjordan 18y ago
    Indeed, but if your site is important to you, you should probably be monitoring its health. I mean, everyone makes backups, right. right? Doing the occasional (1x/week?) check on the files that changed between backups is pretty straightforward and will give you a good idea of whether there's foul play going on.

mojuba 18y ago

Also... be careful when buying domain names that were used previously. I once picked up an just-expired domain name that I thought was nice and then it took me 2 years (!) to get Google to index it. I don't know what the problem was, because archive.org showed it was just a generic search page previously. At that time I registered a company with the same name and I didn't want to give it up. 2 years wasted struggling for an identity! (Fortunately my business did not depend much on search.)

scrod 18y ago

This is why you should not rely on search engines for revenue. Create a name for yourself in a community mediated by humans instead of search bots.

delano 18y ago
And that's why you always leave a note.

tx 18y ago

... But I’m a blogger, web developer and evangelist. I don’t know the security side as well as I should and I don’t have time to make sure everything is rock solid ... Wow, nice to know that the basics of web security isn't in his understanding of web developer's job and apparently beyound what an "evangelist" should care about. If web developers "do not have time" to secure their own shit, why would the world need them? Besides, what does he want? Google kills thousands of fake spamming sites an hour, how on earth would they implement his idea of "heads up warning" before wiping them off the index? And what would Microsoft/Yahoo do? The same goddamn thing, because spamming sites degrade search quality which hurts us all in the end.

greyman 18y ago

The title is very misleading, Google erased him from their index, not from the internet. I don't know why exactly, but a lot of webmasters thinks that somehow Google have to include them in the index, otherwise it's unjust towards them. But they don't have to, it's their property and they really can include or exclude websites as they wish, and it's just their good will that they publicize some of the criteria for getting in.

wallflower 18y ago

I think this article just shows how co-dependent some of us are on the network. Other bloggers leaving comments in this post showing empathy "how horrible" it must have been. I have an addictive personality and it scares me how much you can live your life on the net. Which is why I try to avoid twitter/RSS readers/FB. Remember when Angela in the movie The Net (played by Speed's Sandra Bullock) had her identity erased by the bad guys?