I don't like to accuse people of things, but I have a feeling that the woman I hired over the summer to re-design my blog inserted some spam which ultimately got me kicked out of Google.

With help from the people here on this forum, I found the wicked spam and deleted it.

What bothers me is the note that was left above the spam. Here it is:

# Added to appease certain plugins which check for this code in this file:
# wp_footer();
?>

It appears that the note was left behind to explain why the spam was inserted. That's why I believe my designer put that in my blog. Efforts to reach her have proven fruitless, as she's apparently dropped off the planet.

Be careful who you hire to design or re-design your blog.

I'm not sure what the spam was, but wp_footer() is a WordPress hook that really should be included in your WordPress theme. If it's not there then any plugins that try to hook into wp_footer() so that note is 100% accurate.

What was the actual spam?

Also know that not all web designers are SEO experts. Someone could be a completely honest person and simply not realize their code isn't search friendly. I'm not saying this person wasn't leaving spam behind, since I don't know what code it was that your removed. But if the code you removed was wp_footer() then it wasn't spam and you might want to put it back.

It was well over 200 viagra spam ads. No way would I ever put that back.

One of my blog readers copied the code and emailed it to me (so I'd know what to look for since I'm computer illiterate, pretty much)

Below are some samples which I altered [extremely] to keep people from going to spam sites:

viagra</a> [LF]<a href=levitraeadle20</a>

[LF]<a href="tadalafil india</a>

There must have been close to a thousand of those, all either viagra or levitra. I'd rather not have a plug in at all than to have that nonsense on my blog....and I'm banned from Google as a result.

Just checked my plug-ins. They all are working so nothing was adversely affected by me getting rid of the spam. (by the way, I left the note in tact, just deleted the spam)

That's spam alright. It may not have been your web designer though. Those kind of links are becoming a common thing when your site gets hacked. How frequently do you update WordPress? Often older versions are easily hacked and lately the result is the kind of links you saw. A lot of people never notice the links so it works for the spammers in many cases.

Agreed, looks like the result of a hack.

Question is, though, what's the process for getting back into Google's good graces once all the garbage is cleaned up?

tim

Yeah, could have been someone other than that designer, although it would be better still if you could contact the person so that she would explain herself.

Now with you getting banned it's a totally sucky situation. Have you already taken action - a reconsideration request or something?

I have a good news update. Last night I went to the Google forum and got the attention of a Google employee.

He helped me to get my blog verified (I was having problems with that).

I then was able to send in a reconsideration request.


Also, I found a note from Google in which they told me that I had been hacked by a third party (I had not seen that note, which was written on September 1). They mentioned in the note that I was only temporarily taken out of the system until the problem was fixed (it's now fixed, as I took out the spam).

So hopefully by next month I'll be up and running again!

And yes, I updated Wordpress to the latest version. I feel bad about suspecting my designer but it was hard to accept that someone had actually broken into my blog.

Glad to hear you got this all sorted out with Google. They are generally understanding for things like this and I think as long as the spam links are removed and you fill out a reinclusion request your site will start showing up in search results again.

Understandable about blaming the designer since you knew she had access to the site and your first reaction when you found the links would have been anger, which isn't the best emotion for thinking logically. it's easy to jump to conclusions. Glad I could help your designer get her good name back too

There are definitely some less than ethical designers in the world, but most wouldn't do this sort of thing to a client. It's a quick way to lose your entire business as the word spreads.

Thanks, Steve!

I'm back in Google indexing again. Yippee!

I now check several times per day to ensure the blog is okay because it was hacked [again!]the day after I contacted Google. I cleaned the stuff up. And I do have the most updated version of Wordpress.

If it gets hacked again, I'm going to ask you if you know of anyone I can hire to go in and secure the blog.

Lynn

I don't understand exactly. LennyB, you say your account was hacked by a wordpress plugin? Or by your theme ? I don't understand.

cracked using a "plugin" venerability NOT BY a plugin

I have no idea who or what is causing the hacks but I was hacked again last night.

On a daily basis I have to check the blog 2 - 3 times per day for spam. I just removed more this morning.

Clearly hackers have free entry in in spite of me changing my password daily and I have the most updated version of Wordpress.

Ah sorry to hear that but glad you got rid of it.

It may well have been the designer. That would explain why she hasn't replied to you.

In my main directory a couple of weeks ago I found a file called smiles.php and a folder containing smiley face images (You know those annoying pop ups). It only took a simple delete and nothing has come back so far.

I hope this is the same in your case.

Lennie they might have hacked the site through the server or maybe when you cleaned things up you didn't quite get everything. The spammer probably left a back door to get in after the cleanup.

Did you change all passwords on WordPress and your hosting account?

How many plugins are you using and are they all up to date? Maybe you want to remove all the plugins temporarily to see if that's how the spammer is getting in.

Here's a link to my delicious profile with the tags wordpress and security. There's overlap between many of the posts, but between them there are quite a few suggestions for making WordPress more secure.

Keep in mind it may not be WordPress at fault. It's possible the spammer got in through something else on the server, whether your site or another.

Here is my update (feeling like a soap opera!)

1. I finally tracked down my designer. She had moved from Texas to New York, which is why she was not reachable.

2. She spent several hours trying to track the problem.

3. She re-uploaded the Thesis theme that I'm using for Wordpress and did some other stuff which she explained but I don't understand.

4. Five minutes after she emailed me to tell me she had re-uploaded everything, I checked my footer and it was LOADED with spam!

This is what I think (and I know very little about computer stuff)......

I think that there is a bug in the Thesis theme, though the Thesis people on their forum are telling me "no way". Also, my designer does not believe it is Thesis causing the problem.

She told me she will go on a tare tonight tracking down how the spam keeps getting in.

I only receive 2,000 visitors per day so I don't consider myself a huge blog by any means. Not sure why I'm a target.

In the interim, I will continue checking the footer multiple times per day.

Lynn

Update!

My designer found some suspicious "code".

She believes that a hacker implanted the code which would automatically deposit the spam onto my blog.

Unreal!

Wow. The soap opera continues. That happens a lot where a spammer leaves themselves a backdoor or more likely an automated script that checks to see if the spam is there and if not it adds it again.

Make sure all the scripts are gone. There could be more than one. The spammers figure you'll find the script sooner or later, so they add them in a bunch of different places you might not think to look.

@Marlin ZU, sorry I did not understand what you were communicating.

@ Vangogh - Yes, the soap opera continues. My designer re-installed Thesis wordpress theme and found some suspicious code which she removed.

The spam is continuing so daily I have to check muliple times to ensure the blog is spam free. It returns about every 2 - 3 days. Total nightmare.

I even went to my server company and they tightened up security on their end...to no avail.

Maybe the plugin is the cause of your banned. Email google regarding this matter.