This week, a company approached us with a problem that had arisen with their website. That problem was something that is being referred to as a “Pharma Hack.” Essentially, a Pharma Hack is when your site becomes compromised in a way that looks like you might be promoting different pharmaceuticals. This is in an attempt to lower your search engine rankings while simultaneously increasing a spammer site’s rankings.
There are many different ways a one of these attacks can take place. Here’s the breakdown of what can potentially happen with to your site:
- A spammer site’s owner takes control of your site. This can be done by hijacking your site via FTP or some other sophisticated means of attack. Sometimes, it can be as easy as guessing your log in credentials if you haven’t taken the proper steps of creating a username and password that can’t be easily guessed.
- The spammer will now begin attacking your site by placing keywords for pharmaceuticals in the content of your site, and in many other places that will signal to Google that your site is indeed about pharmaceuticals.
- Some spammers go as far as placing links back to their websites. Remember, when you link to someone’s website, you’re voting for it in Google eyes. You’re essentially telling Google that you endorse that site as being a trusted source for pharmaceuticals.
It’s important to hire the right web design company to create a secure website for your business. Don’t leave your search engine optimization efforts open to attack by spammers. If you need help fixing your website, give us a call!