Site hacking on the rise by 32% year on year

The threat of site hacking, or hackers affecting your online business continues to grow as the number of compromised websites increased further during last year. Findings reported in Google’s #NoHacked review show that approximately 32% more sites were hacked when compared to the previous year.

Fortunately, 84% of webmasters that applied for reconsideration were successful in cleaning their sites. However, a massive 61% of site owners never found out their sites had been infected as they were never verified in Google’s Search Console.

Google attributed the increase in site hacking to a combination of poor website security and a rise in more potent hacking methods. It said: “As hackers get more aggressive and more sites become outdated, hackers will continue to capitalize by infecting more sites.”

In response to this new threat Google has provided webmasters with a series of clean-up guides for sites affected by known site hacking methods. The hacking methods covered by these guides include the gibberish hack, Japanese keywords hack and cloaked keywords hack.

Google has also created a range of documentation to help webmasters identify when their site has been hacked, along with information on how to prevent a breach.

The main point here is that prevention is better than dealing with the aftermath. We regularly check Search Console and other methods for any evidence of hacking, and quick detection allows sites to recover with minimal effect to search engine rankings.