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Ask HN: Google thinks my site has been hacked and suspends traffic. It hasn't.

9 points by nicksergeant 14y ago

See here for the exact message from Google in Webmaster Tools: https://snipt.net/nick/google-thinks-weve-been-hacked/ I'm not sure how to battle something like this. I've submitted a "Reconsideration request" but it says that it may take weeks. This doesn't seem appropriate. I obviously feel pretty violated here. I do run a site where people can upload (publicly) whatever they want, but I actually manually review every public snipt once it goes up (mostly out of curiosity, but also for people uploading credit card numbers, etc). Thoughts on what I should do here? Just sit back and wait?

nicksergeant 14y ago
Clickable: https://snipt.net/nick/google-thinks-weve-been-hacked/ https://snipt.net/nick/google-thinks-weve-been-hacked/ (the site in question is https://snipt.net/ https://snipt.net/)
duiker101 14y ago
I am sorry i do not have a solution for you. I just wanted to make you my compliments for the of the website. It is really nice and i really love it.
- nicksergeant 14y ago
  Well thank you very much! I honestly really appreciate comments like these. The response I've had to this new rebuild of Snipt has made me realize why I bust my ass on it :)
nicksergeant 14y ago
Also, this is currently what you see when you search for "snipt": http://cl.ly/0i3v3t0Z1E3m130e120f http://cl.ly/0i3v3t0Z1E3m130e120f No other search results return from snipt unless you append "site:snipt.net" to your query (which indicates that the index is still there, but Google is filtering them out for normal searches).
itsprofitbaron 14y ago
First of all, don't panic. I have received this email countless of times and aside from checking the logs/files to ensure that there isn't any hack (I have a bunch of notifications which inform me about changes but I still just check to make sure) there's nothing else you can really do. If there is a hack then there are a lot of things you should do but, as you highlight that its not then we can skip this part. You have not been removed from the Google index, you can check if you are still in it by typing "site:snipt.net" likewise you are still also #1 for "snipt". As a result you should not submit a reconsideration request in fact, if you are ever deindexed I believe its the last thing you should do to get your site back in Google. However, you may have lost some serp rankings for other keywords (I haven't bothered to check them to see if they have moved) although, they generally restore themselves once the GoogleBot revisits your site - which is a lot more than any other search bot out there at the moment - if someone is going to beat Google they want them to work a lot harder and smarter than them ;) P.S. You should add a robots.txt file and sitemap.xml files to your site (the sitemap may exist but I couldn't see it) Also you should .htaccess your site so the dynamic pages appear as natural pages - by this I mean change ?page=199 to /page-1 or /1 or even /page/1 (but don't use file extensions as its just an extra hassle if you decide to change your codebase later on).
- nicksergeant 14y ago
  Yeah, I need to add a robots.txt/sitemap.xml, I'll do that tonight. The paginated pages I've actually set to noindex/follow so those shouldn't be an issue any longer. I'm not sure what you mean about not submitting a reconsideration request, ie., how would that be a problem? Unfortunately I'd already submitted the request. I don't really care about rankings or anything like that, the core of my product is private code storage so for the most part this process has just been annoying. Obviously I don't want the site wiped off the face of Google :) Thanks for the tips!
  - itsprofitbaron 14y ago
    Well since you're not deindexed you don't actually need to submit a reconsideration request as it will check if its in Google's index and ignore the request if it is. The fact that you've submitted one doesn't harm a site, I was highlighting that its the last thing anyone should do if their site is deindexed. The reason for that is because if someone wants to get back into Google there are several steps which they should do which often get the site back into the index (sometimes within 48 hours) meaning they don't even need to submit one as their site is back ranking again. The problem with a reconsideration request is that a real person employed/outsourced by Google has to manually review a site and the links to it which is not only is time consuming waiting for this to happen BUT they've been called out several times for not actually reading the reconsideration requests[1]. [1] http://www.clickconsult.com/internet-marketing-blog/google-didnt-even-read-our-reconsideration-request-we-checked-using-bitly.html http://www.clickconsult.com/internet-marketing-blog/google-d...

9 points by nicksergeant 14y ago

nicksergeant 14y ago

Clickable: https://snipt.net/nick/google-thinks-weve-been-hacked/ https://snipt.net/nick/google-thinks-weve-been-hacked/ (the site in question is https://snipt.net/ https://snipt.net/)

duiker101 14y ago

I am sorry i do not have a solution for you. I just wanted to make you my compliments for the of the website. It is really nice and i really love it.

nicksergeant 14y ago
Well thank you very much! I honestly really appreciate comments like these. The response I've had to this new rebuild of Snipt has made me realize why I bust my ass on it :)

nicksergeant 14y ago

Also, this is currently what you see when you search for "snipt": http://cl.ly/0i3v3t0Z1E3m130e120f http://cl.ly/0i3v3t0Z1E3m130e120f No other search results return from snipt unless you append "site:snipt.net" to your query (which indicates that the index is still there, but Google is filtering them out for normal searches).

itsprofitbaron 14y ago

First of all, don't panic. I have received this email countless of times and aside from checking the logs/files to ensure that there isn't any hack (I have a bunch of notifications which inform me about changes but I still just check to make sure) there's nothing else you can really do. If there is a hack then there are a lot of things you should do but, as you highlight that its not then we can skip this part. You have not been removed from the Google index, you can check if you are still in it by typing "site:snipt.net" likewise you are still also #1 for "snipt". As a result you should not submit a reconsideration request in fact, if you are ever deindexed I believe its the last thing you should do to get your site back in Google. However, you may have lost some serp rankings for other keywords (I haven't bothered to check them to see if they have moved) although, they generally restore themselves once the GoogleBot revisits your site - which is a lot more than any other search bot out there at the moment - if someone is going to beat Google they want them to work a lot harder and smarter than them ;) P.S. You should add a robots.txt file and sitemap.xml files to your site (the sitemap may exist but I couldn't see it) Also you should .htaccess your site so the dynamic pages appear as natural pages - by this I mean change ?page=199 to /page-1 or /1 or even /page/1 (but don't use file extensions as its just an extra hassle if you decide to change your codebase later on).

nicksergeant 14y ago
Yeah, I need to add a robots.txt/sitemap.xml, I'll do that tonight. The paginated pages I've actually set to noindex/follow so those shouldn't be an issue any longer. I'm not sure what you mean about not submitting a reconsideration request, ie., how would that be a problem? Unfortunately I'd already submitted the request. I don't really care about rankings or anything like that, the core of my product is private code storage so for the most part this process has just been annoying. Obviously I don't want the site wiped off the face of Google :) Thanks for the tips!
- itsprofitbaron 14y ago
  Well since you're not deindexed you don't actually need to submit a reconsideration request as it will check if its in Google's index and ignore the request if it is. The fact that you've submitted one doesn't harm a site, I was highlighting that its the last thing anyone should do if their site is deindexed. The reason for that is because if someone wants to get back into Google there are several steps which they should do which often get the site back into the index (sometimes within 48 hours) meaning they don't even need to submit one as their site is back ranking again. The problem with a reconsideration request is that a real person employed/outsourced by Google has to manually review a site and the links to it which is not only is time consuming waiting for this to happen BUT they've been called out several times for not actually reading the reconsideration requests[1]. [1] http://www.clickconsult.com/internet-marketing-blog/google-didnt-even-read-our-reconsideration-request-we-checked-using-bitly.html http://www.clickconsult.com/internet-marketing-blog/google-d...