Server hacked, viagra links placed, site dissappeared from SERP's

[srik79]

A PR7 site of mine which was ranking for top keywords was hacked and hidden viagra links were placed in it and lost all rankings. I actually went and checked when i saw the rankings go.

It looks like links were placed 4 days ago and rankings were lost today.

I removed the links on this website, removed them from other websites on that host (many sites were hacked, timestamps were not changed)

so what type of damage am i looking at? permanent? temporary?
if temporary, how long.... do i do a re inclusion request?

Thanks,
Srik

[tedster]

The ranking damage should be temporary - but before you submit a reconsideration request, you should be sure you have fixed the security hole that allowed the hack. Mentioning that in your reconsideration request will go a long way to a speedier recovery.

The discussion How Hacked Servers Can Hurt Your Traffic [webmasterworld.com] may give you some further help. It's in the Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.

[srik79]

Thanks Tedster, how long do i wait before submitting the request?

[tedster]

If you cleaned out the bad links and fixed the security hole, there's no reason to wait at all. You might find the site returns even without a request, but submitting the request has been known to accelerate the process.

[srik79]

Thanks Tedster,

will the recovery be almost instant as in the site will reappear around the same ranks or will be slow and painfull? like starting in 900's and then climb...

[tedster]

It's been pretty much "instant" in the cases I worked with.

[srik79]

Thanks Tedster,

couple of keywords showed up in 900 range, is it a bad thing? since they did not show up around original ranks?

haven't submitted the re-inclusion rest yet

[zeus]

If you have removed the links and googlebot has been by it should not take that long and you can see your old rankings, if not I would sent a reinclusion.

[srik79]

They are back to here they were :)

[zeus]

good

[srik79]

Thanks Tedster and Zeus :)

btw without re-inclusion request...

[zeus]

yes, I would also say its not nessesary to make a reinclusion, with such a problem or at least wait 3 weeks before such a request, Google is build so that it automatic reinclude your site after troubles, but who cares now you are back in the Cyber world ;)

[maximus12]

Congrats srik79, have been following this post :)