My website got hacked, the posts were deindexed! WA Site Support is Awesome!
Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well.
Yesterday was our ninth year anniversary of marriage, but I couldn’t enjoy the day. It was actually one most frustrating day since I joined WA.
Yesterday in the early afternoon, when I checked on my website, some strange things happened. It redirected to a different page, something like this- the image below:
I immediately realized that my website was hacked. I then opened a ticket to Site Support. Ten minutes later, they fixed my problem.
Here is a screenshot of my ticket:
OK, I think this was over. My website went back to normal. I didn’t install another Related Posts plugin as I felt a little suspicious.
The plugin I used and what caused the trouble was called "Yuzo Related Post Plugin".
Thanks Andrew, he also had an article about this plugin.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/andrew-74/blog/yuzo-related-...
After that, I posted a new article and did every SEO step. A half hour later, I checked it on Google Console, the new post was already indexed. At that point, my 62 posts were all indexed from Google. I’m pretty happy with it!
About 8 PM, as a habit, I went on to Google Console to check my site again. I found that something was very wrong! My posts were deindexed! I re-inspected every post on my site but none of them was indexed anymore.
I started to worry and got very nervous. This has never happened before. I don’t know what I did wrong. I searched “deindexed” and posted a question on WA but nothing worked. I even sent PM to a few top members in the community to ask for help.
Someone suggested that I should contact Site Support. So I did. In the beginning, they didn’t know what was going on until I pointed out that I got hacked earlier. They replied me said that they were looking into it, I just need to be patient.
On Google Console it said that I had 293 Duplicate submitted URL not selected as canonical. So in the same ticket I asked Site Support to look into this issue as well.
That was almost 1 AM. I was worried and exhausted but nothing else I could do so I forced myself went to bed.
The whole night I couldn’t get to sleep. This morning at 4 O’clock I went on to WA and saw the reply from Site Support. They didn’t say anything about why my website was deindexed, but they told me that they regenerated my sitemap, I need to resubmit it to Google Console and wait to Google re-index me.
I checked my posts after I re-submitted site map. They are re-indexed now.
Thank goodness! I hope this is over!
The only thing I am still concerned about is, how to prevent this happens again?
I believe WA hosting is good and secure but I still got hacked. Maybe I should install a plugin to solidify it.
Think about all the efforts we put into our website, we are tring so hard to provide useful and helpful information to our audiences. But there are always some bad people out there who are trying to scam you! It’s a very sad factor Indeed!
another thing got my attention was, in Kaju‘s posts he mentioned that WA recently had an upgrade. Here are his posts Incase if you haven’t read them yet.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/jetrbby80316/blog/beware-you...
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/jetrbby80316/blog/site-suppo...
This upgrade caused him a lot of headache. I am not sure if my problems were also related to the upgrade. But unfortunately, I’m not a tech savvy so I cannot look further as Kaju did.
Hopefully this kind of issue won’t happen to others.
However, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about Site Support. They always respond very fast and help me solve every problem.
A website like Wealthy Affiliate must be dealing with a lot of little issues every single day. Kyle & Carson and their suppot team are the ones who are working very hard behind the screen to make sure everthing running smoothly. We are definitely in good hands!
Nothing is perfect. We have to learn the lesson, even sometimes through the hard way. But it is part of the growth and eventually worth the effort!
It's time to get back to work.
Thank you guys for all your support. : )
Amy
Recent Comments
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Amy,
I am so sorry this happened. Computer stuff can be so frustrating.
It is even worse that it happened on your anniversary. I would have preferred your 9th year anniversary have been an extra happy day. Congratulations for 9 years. I hope that you have many more anniversaries that are better than this one was.
I need to check my site's related post plugin now.
Dear Sondra, Thank you for your kind words. The day was very rough but thank goodness it's over. Now I can focus on moving forward again.
Good luck with your work and all the best. : )
So sorry to hear about that, I know how frustrating and worrying it can be when something goes wrong and your not tec savvy and have to rely on others for help.
At least it is fixed now. I try and take everything as a positive (although it can be hard), so use it as a learning experience and more importantly dont get disheartend
I hope tomorrow is a better day
I totally agree with you, Kevin. I'm taking this as a positive thing. At least I have learned my lesson. Next time I will know what to do.
Thank you for taking the time to leave the comment.
All the best. : )
This is scary ... it kind of makes you put the brakes on a bit when your at an early stage of building your website like ... aslong as its sorted now then all is good
Everything could happen, It's all part of the progress of learning and growing. Luckily we have a great support team here at WA.
Best wishes to you. : )
Hi Amy,
I am very sorry for your ordeal, and I am happy to see that your situation is back to normal.
However, this has got me very suspicious as I also use a related post plugin called "Inline Related Posts". I have been using it for over a year now and never had any issues with it.
This plugin inserts some related posts from my own website to articles that relate to one another. Is this the same kind as the one you had? And if so is it the same plugin?
Thanks!
Denis
Hi Denis, you are welcome.
The plugin was not the one you are using. I'm actually thinking of re-install a different and reliable Related Posts plugin. I will try yours.
Thank you for stopping. : )
I'm so sorry to hear about your issues!!
Question, are you sure you got hacked or accidentally allowed access to a third party. The original plugin that caused the problem got removed, which fixed the problem.
A lot of people say they got their Facebook 'hacked' when they really got 'scammed' into entering their login to a dummy page or similar. Facebook security is top notch so it doesn't get hacked (it would have to be like Criminal Minds related genius to do), but people often get scammed. But they don't want to believe that or admit it so they say 'hacked'.
I'm asking because you getting hacked would mean that hosting security is having a issue in it's update. You unintentionally allowing access through a plug-in is different. And the hacking issue would reflect badly on WA. So be sure to choose the right term so we don't negativily impact WA unnecessarily.
I am pretty sure that my website was hacked. I used my computer and iPad to test out by tapping my site url in the browser, they were both redirected to that page. I had to run antivirus software on my devices.
But you are right. I should choose my words carefully so it won't negatively impact WA. I have changed around some part of this post.
Thank you for taking the time to leave the comment and thanks for the reminder.
Using a different device wouldn't matter as you were accessing the site, even if it was just a virus or malicious software in the plug-in, changing devices wouldn't help.
Either way, I'm glad it's taken care of!! Sorry that happened to you. :(
Oh no, Amy! I am disheartened to hear this happened to you...
I am glad you got everything fixed but agree with you that this is worrisome; how can we prevent something like this happening?
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It is important to the community to share these experiences so we can avoid things like this. Please keep us updated should something else 'weird' happen.
Happy Anniversary! xo
Try to have a better day
xoAmy
You are welcome and thank you for your kind words.
Every step we go can have some unexpected things happen. We learn what we can. It's all worth the work. : ) xoxo
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Sorry to hear that, I always install plugins that have a lot of star ratings, lots of installs from members and have been recently updated.
This is how you avoid such dangerous plugins.
That is great advice! I will take it. Thank you so much for stopping by!