Someone hacked in and got me banned with invisible links

[theyellowfrog]

Hi, i hope this is the right forum. Someone that used to work for me had hacked into my site that was well ranked and linked invisibly to 3 of his sites on every page of my sites. My rankings had been suffering and i did not know why.

It a also possible that he has diverted leads from my site to his as ive been having huge duplicates lately from my broker.

I am so livid its untrue. However what can i do? it must be impossible to prove he put them there?

Please help here as i am steaming beyond belief.

Robert

[tedster]

It doesn't matter who put the problems on your server. Just fix them (and any other possible Google Guideline violations as well) and then use your Webmaster Tools account to request reconsideration of your site, explaining what was wrong and what you did to fix it.

By the way, if those unwanted outbound links are the only mischief that was done, that might hurt your ranking but it won't get your site a penalty. All you really need to do in that case is remove the links.

Here's Google's Help page:

How do I request reconsideration of my site? [google.com]

[theyellowfrog]

Thanks Tedster,
you say it wont have given me a penalty but these links were completely invisible and some 1 pixel links also, that must be a penalty risk factor?

Also, they hacked into my sites and diverted leads to their emails frst i just found out. i dont want them to get away with this but its hard to prove.

Thanks

Rob

[koan]

theyellowfrog, if you think they only modified the online version of your site, I'd suggest fully re-uploading it from your local version after changing your passwords. You never know what else they could have done. Then of course, there is the legal recourse.

[tedster]

Sorry, I missed the fact that this was invisible stuff. Sure, that violates Google's guidelines. So fix everything and then file the request. Many people have reported that this manual reconsideration from Google means a very close look - so be sure to fix anything that might be questionable.

By the way, this might help restore some humor to you disposition -- even Google has had unauthorized links placed on some of their pages.

[MLHmptn]

So you don't have logs from your server to prove he did anything? I would proceed with legal action if I had any incriminating evidence first and foremost.

[theyellowfrog]

Thanks for your replies.

I may have logs i have to check, but suing people who have no money at all is a fruitless exercise i think, and a costly one. horrid as it is i may just have to put this down to experience.

Rob

[4serendipity]

I'd simply try removing the invisible links and waiting a few days. I had a site that was similarly hacked recently. It's position in the Google SERPs did suffer quite a bit, but they rebounded after I cleaned them up.