Local SEO and Hacked Sites
Well after 15 years of specializing in SEO one of my sites got hacked. Malware detected from Google Webmaster Tools. WOW. Shock. SSL Certificate installed, and was on a secure server.Just so happened to be my longest all time #1 ranking site. Ok, don't panic like Jim Cramer would say. So after doing some fast research, I did exactly what Google Webmaster Tools said to do. I found the Malicious coding on the site which was easy cause I have been staring at this coding since 2005 for this site. I knew exactly where it was and deleted it instantly.
Rankings are dropping fast as Google has blocked the site and has coded this site as being hacked and dangerous. Client is watching by the minute his site fall down in rankings.
After doing everything I could and resubmitting to Google for review, now it's time to sit and wait. Not knowing how long the process would take, being tortured as you may call it, within two days the site was back up and moved back up in rankings.
But in the mean time, the site split. Google split the sites between Organic and Local which were combined sometime back. So now I had one #2 Local and #3 Organic (dropped to 5th) but the odd thing was Google actually changed the local listing from the actual website to the Google plus page as a fall back site which saved any business from being lost. Client really never did loose much from this whole incident.
So in closing, thank you Google for having backup for me without even knowing how really important the Google Plus pages were until this happened.
All is good and everything back to normal. Local and Organic listing merged and ranking high.
I have to think this must be an all time record for a hacked site recovery.
SEO SPECIALIST well deserved title if I say so myself! I'm all you need.
