John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, recently addressed a Reddit post from a website owner grappling with a significant surge in indexed foreign language pages. The owner discovered over 20,000 pages in Japanese and Chinese on their site, which they neither created nor intended to host. Seeking assistance from the Reddit community, they aimed to remove the unwanted pages and restore their site’s rankings.
In response, Mueller provided guidance on resolving the issue and implementing preventive measures. According to the website owner, Google indexed thousands of foreign language pages within a day, and these pages were not present in the cPanel backend website management system.
This raised concerns for the owner, who feared a potential security breach or misconfiguration that could have enabled unauthorized parties to publish content on their site. The abrupt surge in pages aligns with a tactic known in the world of search engine optimization as a “Japanese keyword hack.” This technique involves manipulating search results by inundating a site with irrelevant pages optimized for Japanese keywords.
Such attacks pose an escalating threat to the security and integrity of websites, as illustrated by the Reddit user’s predicament. This incident underscores the imperative for heightened vigilance in the face of these emerging challenges.
What Spammy Foreign Language Hack?
A spammy foreign language hack, also known as a “Japanese keyword hack” or similar terms, is a type of cyber attack targeting websites to manipulate search engine results. In this type of hack, perpetrators exploit vulnerabilities in a website’s security, allowing them to inject a large number of pages containing irrelevant or spammy content, often optimized for specific foreign language keywords.
The goal of such hacks is to deceive search engines into ranking the compromised website higher for certain search queries in a particular language. The content injected is typically unrelated to the website’s original purpose or content, and it may include keywords designed to attract traffic or manipulate search engine algorithms.
Website owners may not be aware of these added pages until they notice unusual changes in search engine rankings, increased traffic from irrelevant searches, or other anomalies. Dealing with spammy foreign language hacks requires identifying and removing unauthorized pages, securing the website against future attacks, and sometimes requesting search engines to reindex the cleaned site. It’s an ongoing challenge for website security, and preventive measures like regular security updates and monitoring are essential to mitigate the risk of such hacks.
Mueller’s Advice
In response to the plea for assistance, Mueller verified that the website had indeed been compromised. He then recommended moving forward by determining the method through which the breach took place.
“Since someone hacked your site, even if you’ve cleaned up the hacked traces, it’s important to understand how they did it, so that you can make sure that the old vulnerabilities are locked down.”
He recommended that, even after eliminating any remnants of the hack, it is essential to comprehend the means by which it occurred in order to secure and fortify those vulnerabilities.
Mueller proposed that implementing automatic updates and possibly transitioning to a hosting platform with built-in security measures could serve as advantageous solutions.
SEO Ramifications
Mueller emphasized that once the essential pages of a site are rid of undesirable content, they can undergo swift reindexing.
He reassured that there’s no cause for concern regarding old hacked pages persisting in the index but remaining unseen by users. Such pages can continue in that state for several months without posing any problems.
“Old pages will remain indexed for months, they don’t cause any problems if they tend not to be seen.”
Mueller also made it clear that there is no need to disavow spammy backlinks leading to these unseen indexed pages.
Instead, he suggested prioritizing the cleanup of a site’s visible content and taking measures to prevent the indexing of internal search results.
Dealing with Spammy Links and Indexing
When the website owner sought Mueller’s guidance on addressing spammy backlinks causing the indexing of internal search pages, Mueller clarified that it was a distinct issue from the hacking incident. He discouraged disavowing the links, assuring that the affected pages would naturally fade from search results over time.
Mueller recommended taking a proactive approach by blocking search results pages for both new and existing sites to mitigate the risk of exploitation by spammers.
“Block the search results from indexing (robots.txt or noindex). For new/other sites, I’d generally block search results pages from indexing, no need to wait until someone takes advantage of your site like this.”
Guidance for SEO Practitioners
The discussion with Mueller underscores the significance of taking proactive steps to safeguard websites against the adverse impact of hacking and spammy links on search rankings.
Conducting routine maintenance practices such as regular security updates, malware scans, and link audits is crucial. Both website owners and search engines bear the responsibility of ensuring that search results remain devoid of hacked and spammy content.
Would you like to read more about “Google’s John Mueller On Spammy Foreign Language Hack” related articles? If so, we invite you to take a look at our other tech topics before you leave!
Use our Internet marketing service to help you rank on the first page of SERP.
