How could this even happen?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by Kaiti, Jan 26, 2025.

  1. #1
    I'm not sure if this is the right category to post this.
    I wanted to check how my website ranked on Google Search, so I used site:mysite.com. What I discovered was shocking link—Google has indexed hundreds of links and posts that were never created and don’t even exist on my site.

    I now have two questions:

    1. How is something like this even possible?
    2. What’s the best way to remove these harmful links from Google’s index?
    P.S. I also noticed that Bing has completely removed my site from its index.
     
    Kaiti, Jan 26, 2025 IP
  2. sarahk

    sarahk iTamer Staff

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    #2
    Have you been hacked?
    What happens if you click on one of the links? The one I chose got a 403 response so that's good
    Do you have an xml sitemap for both google and bing?
    Is it showing the right information?
    How long have you owned the domain for - is there a chance these were there before you bought/registered it?
    Do you have any feedback in the google search console?
     
    sarahk, Jan 27, 2025 IP
  3. Kaiti

    Kaiti Well-Known Member

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    #3
    I don't see any changes in the xml, it's the articles I've published.
    I've had the domain for over 10 years now, this isn't the problem either.
    I don't have any notification from Google, I only see from Bing that you've completely removed the page from indexing.
     
    Kaiti, Jan 28, 2025 IP
  4. sarahk

    sarahk iTamer Staff

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    #4
    Your site is wordpress and it used to have big problems with this kind of hacking.

    2 things to do
    1. install a security plugin that checks the files on your site against their manifest
    2. delete all your wordpress program files (not uploads, not config) and reinstall
    Then you just have to wait for google and bing to process the 404/403s and remove those pages from their index.
     
    sarahk, Jan 29, 2025 IP