Penalty, Scraper, or Hack causing problem

[rjwmotor]

I have a situation with a site. It's a little over 2 years old, no advertising of any kind ever, no paid links, and have been adding to it monthly. We have acquired some one-way links and a few reciprocals(leass than 10) over this time and have been slowly climbing the rankings. At our highest point we were 12th. The url is set up like this: kw-kw-kw.com. I know it looks spammy and when we chose this name we knew we'd likely have to "prove" ourselves to G that it wasn't. It is an ecommerce site specializing in a niche of one of the keywords. After a little over a year it started it's climb in the rankings and then over the last week it has plummetted to the back of the results. I've read the -950 thread and initially thought this is what happened but now I'm at a loss.
At the begining of Dec we were hacked and didn't notice it right away. A seperate folder was created and thousands of spam pages were created and indexed by G. We have since fixed the problem and all pages now return 404's but they are indexed. Also, whatever spam creator/script created this mess it looks like there are over 1700 bl's that appeared around the same time to these junk pages.

My question is: what to do now? Has the site been -950'd or is it a result of the hack or a combination and is there anything I can do to save this site? Any thoght or ideas are greatly appreciated.

[tedster]

Sounds like you found the problem - now give Google some time to process all those 404s. You might also file a reconsideration request in your Webmaster Tools account - explaining the issue and the steps you took. That might speed up the recovery for you.

No it's not a -950, you just got nailed for all those parasite hosted urls and outbound links.

[edited by: tedster at 5:37 pm (utc) on Dec. 28, 2007]

[rjwmotor]

Will do, however I'm still seeing new links TO these dead pages with a cache of 2 days ago. If they are returning 404's, what will G think? Won't G still see these as inbound links and continue the penalty?

[tedster]

Only bad links on your domain should speak badly of your site to Google. The links are not on your domain - they are most likely generated by the same people who placed the parasite files on your server.

Still, I do encourage you to explain the situation to Google in a reconsideration request. You're far from the only website that has been hit by this kind of parasite hosting scam - so Google should already be quite familiar with the general shape of the problem these scam artists generate.

[rjwmotor]

I hadn't ever used their tools before this. I submitted a reconsideration request. Should I use their removal tool for that entire directory that the garbage pages were in? It is located in a section of the site that only has php functions and the like so no good indexable pages are there anyway. Like I said, all pages now return 404's so is this necessary? Recommended?

[tedster]

It shouldn't be "necessary", but the removal tool can speed things up - so it might help. At the very least, you might clarify your GWT reports.

But you're only a little over a week into this episode, and a holiday week at that. I'd expect things to begin to shake out in just a little while longer, but possibly your rankings might be depressed a bit for a little while, since you just shook up your trust with Google. Make sure that server is nailed down tight because another hack would be a bad thing.

[rjwmotor]

Sorry but what is:
"At the very least, you might clarify your GWT reports. "

This just stinks, this site was finally starting to make some $ and then it tanks. Exact same problem in MSN. Don't you just love the people who create this type of garbage?....

[bwnbwn]

"thousands of spam pages were created and indexed by G. We have since fixed the problem and all pages now return 404's"

Just a thought here wouldn't it be better to have 301'd the folder to your site. By having a 1000 or more 404's may in itself be a problem..

[rjwmotor]

Of the thousands created, only about 150(thank God) were actually indexed by G. It looks like G has already started picking up some of these as 404's in their tools(about 20). If I redirect now, after filing a reconsideration, and then they review it and see the 301; couldn't they think this mess was my own diabolical doing?
I just want my rankings back...:(

[rjwmotor]

tedster or anyone else who has experienced this:

Any idea on how long it takes to recover from something like this?

[tedster]

I also would let the pages stay 404, I think your logic is sound. In terms of recovery time, I never had exactly this degree of situation that I manage - we always caught the parasite hosting attempts before major damage occured (knock on wood). But it sounds like you've done what you can, I think - especially if you've tightened up server security.

[rjwmotor]

There are still new bad links popping up to the site everyday. The majority are coming from some Japanese(?) blog. The pages don't exist but all the new links still make me think I'm screwed. Should I be worried about the new links coming in, too?

[youfoundjake]

Sorry but what is:
"At the very least, you might clarify your GWT reports. "

GWT is Googles Webmasters Tools console
you can sign up here:
[google.com...]

[youfoundjake]

Oops, also, heeh.

As far as the 404 status codes, expect those pages that are in Google's cache to last a year. After a year, they should be removed.
[webmasterworld.com...]

I would also recommend looking at [webmasterworld.com...] #3062032

[rjwmotor]

There are still 100's of bad links popping up to the site everyday. The majority are coming from some Japanese(?) blog. GWT have been picking these up as 404's but all the new links still make me think I'm screwed. Should I be worried about the new links coming in, too?

[walrus]

I am not sure but If a seperate folder was created wouldn't adding a redirect gone to the whole new folder be better than the 404s?
Also, using site command ,the same descriptions show up on many of your pages, it might be adding to your problem.

[santapaws]

why would u not just 410 the whole folder?

[rjwmotor]

Well it's been over 2 months since this has happened with no recovery whatsoever. G has yanked all the bad pages that were indexed but I'm STILL receiving dozens of new bad links pointing to the site daily. All go 404 but I'm assuming this is what G doesn't like. I'm beginning to think the domain is done for.

GWT shows some activity on their end but traffic definitely has not recovered and I'm still sitting at the back of the serps. Starting to wonder if there's some other penalty in play.

Any suggestions, comments, or related experiences would be great...

Thanks