Unraveling Blackhat SEO: Is My TechSEO Strategy on Point?
When analyzing a client’s website, I stumbled upon something shocking: their homepage was indexed for nearly a thousand inappropriate keywords—many tied to offensive adult themes involving minors. Startled, I verified this using Ahrefs, and indeed, these disturbing keywords were showing up.
Here’s the pathway I’ve followed so far, along with my initial theories which you can find towards the end of this post…
Investigative Steps
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Hacking Check: First, I searched for any signs of hacking or keyword manipulation. Everything looked normal—no unauthorized keywords lurking around.
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Font and Color Trickery: I examined the website for tactics like the use of small fonts or white-text to hide keywords. Again, nothing seemed out of place.
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Spammy Links: Utilizing SEMRush’s toxic report, I examined the site’s backlinks for any signs of spam. Results were clean on this front too.
My Theory and Plan of Action
Given the above, my current suspicion is that this might be a case of Google Cloaking. To test this theory, I plan to gain access to their Google Search Console—a step made easier as I’ve raised this concern with the client. Through the “Fetch as Google” tool, I can simulate how Google’s crawlers interpret the site, possibly exposing these dubious keywords if my cloaking suspicion is correct.
I’d appreciate any insights from the community on my hypothesis and whether there might be other reasons these keywords are hitchhiking on this domain. Any guidance or additional strategies would be immensely helpful. Thank you in advance!
2 responses to “Confirming if My TechSEO Approach Counters Blackhat Tactics”
Your concern about being a potential victim of blackhat SEO tactics, particularly involving inappropriate keywords, is understandable given the potential damage this could cause a client’s online reputation. You’ve taken some excellent initial steps in identifying the issue and hypothesizing possible causes. Here’s how you can further investigate and address the problem:
Verify Google’s Cache and SERPs: Use “site:example.com” search in Google to see what pages are actually being indexed. Sometimes, the issue might appear in Google’s cached version or SERP snippets, which may give a clue about cloaking. Also, manually inspect what users are seeing versus what you see when searching for the same keywords.
GSC Analysis: Since you have gained access to Google Search Console, perform a thorough review. Look for any manual actions under the Security & Manual Actions menu. Review the Performance report to see which pages are receiving impressions and clicks for these undesirable keywords.
Fetch as Google: As you mentioned, using “URL Inspection” in Google Search Console (formerly Fetch as Google) is a sound plan. It will show you how Googlebot views your website. Compare this with what a regular visitor would see. Any discrepancies may indicate cloaking.
Security Audit: Though your initial scan didn’t show signs of hacking, consider conducting a deeper audit. Malicious scripts can be injected that alter content based on detecting bots. Tools like Wordfence or Sucuri can perform comprehensive scans.
Verify Backlink Profile: While SEMRush indicated no ultra-spammy links, it’s worthwhile cross-referencing with another tool like Moz or Majestic. Look for any patterns or an influx of recent backlinks that might correlate with these keywords.
Cloaking and Deceptive Practices: If cloaking is confirmed, rectify this with clean backups, or consider reaching out to a professional security expert. It’s also crucial to report any confirmed deceptive practices to Google via their spam report tool.
Disavow Harmful Links: If you find toxic backlinks, prepare a disavow file to submit to Google Search Console to prevent them from affecting your SEO.
Monitor and Reassess: After making necessary changes, continue to monitor the site performance in Google Search Console and through tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush. Ensure that undesirable keywords and pages are de-indexed over time.
Documentation: Keep a detailed log of your findings
Thank you for sharing your comprehensive investigation into this perplexing situation. It’s alarming to hear about inappropriate keywords indexing on a client’s site, especially those tied to sensitive topics. Your methodical approach to rule out common blackhat tactics is commendable.
I’d like to suggest a couple of additional avenues for your investigation that could complement your current methodology. First, have you considered reviewing the site’s content management system (CMS) for any plugins or third-party scripts that could inadvertently introduce these keywords? Sometimes, outdated or poorly coded plugins can cause unexpected behavior on a website.
Moreover, monitoring the server logs might reveal suspicious activities or unauthorized access attempts, which could help identify the root cause of this issue. Additionally, implementing a more rigorous content audit could uncover any hidden issues within the text that aren’t immediately apparent.
In terms of your hypothesis about cloaking, it might also be worth looking into the website’s robots.txt file and meta tags to ensure there’s no misconfiguration that could mislead search engines.
Finally, I recommend setting up a Google Alerts feed for the offending keywords to monitor if they reappear or if similar patterns develop elsewhere. This could provide crucial insights not only for this client but also for proactive measures across your other projects.
Looking forward to hearing about your findings and any resolution you achieve with this complex issue!