Google Site Links Showing Viagra Link

[Salwolke]

A client's local listing shows a site link that takes you to a viagra page. It doesn't show all the time, but it shows up regularly. Any idea on how to remove it?

 

[Cherie Dickey]

Hi Copywirter39,

As far as I know, sitelinks only show pages that are on the site, so there is something on the website causing this.

I took a look at the domain, and did a branded search of the business, along with the term "Sildenafil". There are certain indexed links showing in search that are redirecting to (Sorry Cherie had to remove that link to bad neighborhood and don't want to start attracting online pharm spammers.)

Here are a few I found at the top of my search, but there are likely more:

https://www.americanofdubuque.com/american_results.php
https://www.americanofdubuque.com/american_agent_results.php?ID=43
https://www.americanofdubuque.com/search_results.php
https://americanofdubuque.com/staff_details.php?ID=60

I would start by combing through the site, and identifying these links. You can use ScreamingFrog, or a similar tool to help with this. Then, I would remove them from the site. As an extra step, I would then request that they be hidden from search via Webmaster tools (Remove URLs Tool - Search Console Help), and request a recrawl of the entire site afterwards.

I hope this helps!

-Cherie

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good catch Cherie. I had only looked at the doc, had not looked at the live site or SERPS yet.

I just plugged the whole domain into Google search and got 4 drug or iffy ad links.

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Cherie always has great advice, so start there!

I don't specialize in this type of spam, but I think they must find a way to penetrate your host or one of apps on the site. So I think you need to do more than just deleting the current pages cuz I think the root problem would still be there and this would keep happening.

I think there are companies that just deal with eradicating this kind of spam. If you can't get a handle on it, may need to hire some help!

 

[Greg Schueler]

The website has clearly been hacked. You can do a site: search for the domain and see all the spam pages that have been built and indexed. (See here)

It's not a WordPress site, so I can't give too many tips to help clean it. I would start by contacting your host to see if they can help clean it, or Sucuri. Hosts usually are no help in this.

Basically though, you will need to scan the entire server for infected files, clean all the bad files, update/secure the security holes and change all passwords to prevent re-hacks. Once clean and secure, create a new clean sitemap and resubmit to Google Search Console to start removing the bad indexed spam links. (This can take a long time to clear).

The site looks pretty old and dated, so not sure how easy it will be to get the coding up to date on the backend. If it was WordPress, I could help a lot more.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for jumping in Greg! That sounds like excellent advice.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Yes. Sounds like a definite hack.

 

[Salwolke]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my query. I was out of town for a few days and didn't have time to check back on this. Will pass this onto the webmasters.

 

[Conor Treacy]

Along with repairing the hack, tell your webmasters to update the Google Tools and request Google to remove a link on your page. That happens usually in less than 24 hours.

You can also tell Google specifially not to include certain URLs in your site links. So do both of those to clean up things.

Remove outdated content - Google Search Help