When 1,605 WordPress users were surveyed, about 50% of them admitted they were flagged by Google when they were a hacked website because they contained “malicious content.” Unfortunately, this means that many people don’t realize when they were flagged since Google doesn’t alert you. However, if you move quickly once you’ve been hacked, you’ll probably be able to clean it up before Google even notices it. This means that it is possible for you to avoid having your SEO affected. Before you can do this, there are some things you must know and understand.
The Impact Hacking has on a Website
When you think about how a hacked website might impact your SEO traffic, you may grow a bit anxious. This is because you’ve probably heard that many people have their traffic drop once this happens – an astounding 9% of the 1,605 people surveyed have seen their hacked website’s traffic drop by over 75%. When this happens it’s because Google flagged the website as “hacked.” What this means is that you don’t want to be hacked, but if this happens to you, it’s important to fix it faster than Google can notice it. The importance here can’t be emphasized enough because 45% of those who were hacked and noticed never saw their traffic return to normal after they cleaned up their website.
Cleaning up a Hacked Website
Unfortunately, it isn’t a matter of time before a hacked website improves its SEO ranking again. Instead, Google penalizes them, and they suffer a long-term penalty in the SERPs. Obviously, this means you must return your website to normal within 24 hours of being hacked – something you can only do if you keep a backup available. Unfortunately, this is something that most people don’t do and so they take about 8 days to restore their website.
When you backup your website, make sure you store them off site and retain them for as long as possible. Besides backing up your website you should have a group of people (whether friends or experts) who are there to help you. These things will make it easier for you to get back to normal as soon as possible.
Understanding the Real Cost of a Hacked Website
The cost will vary greatly depending on the type of website you own. This cost is figured in terms of downtime, lost revenue, an adverse impact on your SEO, repair fees, and other such costs. On average, this will cost you around $2,500 though. Even if it costs you slightly more or less here, it’s still quite expensive. This is why you should do your best to never be hacked. If you’re still unfortunate enough to be hacked some of the penalties you may face include:
- Immediately being removed from Google’s SERPs
- Being warned about technical issues that you must fix to remain listed
- Having users warned that your website is a potential threat or danger
Since you don’t want your SEO to be impacted in this way, it’s vital that you clean up a hacked website as fast and as soon as possible.
The Takeaway
There’s so much interesting information available on this topic, but what it all concludes is it’s time to take hacking’s impact on your website seriously. This means you must do everything possible to prevent your website from being hacked. With everything else you must do for your business, you’re probably wondering where you’re supposed to find time to add one more thing to this list. Fortunately, the Local SEO Tampa Company is here to help you with this task – just like they’ve helped so many other website owners in the past. Make sure you reach out to them today.