Lost Art Of Blogging flagged by Google

Feb 14, 2008 in Miscellaneous, The Net

Last week I got hacked by some kind of automated system, that exploited a glitch in Wordpress. The end result was a post lost, after it got filled with spam links advising me to buy all sorts of stuff for my “phallus,” after which I quickly deleted the post. Today however to my surprise I found that the blog has been flagged by Google as a host for malicious software, housing malware and stuff that may hurt your computer’s integrity.

The thing is the blog doesn’t have any more malware, It didn’t had any in the first place, just some spam links linking to domains that contain malware and for that I’m more or less banned on Google. Just take a look for yourself what happens when you search for Lost Art Of Blogging on Google.

Click on the screenshots for a maximized view.

Soon received e-mails from readers (thanks a lot guys for your concern) reporting the same thing. This issue not only halts all of my search engines traffic, but also deeply hearts my reputation as I’m being put in the same zone with link farms, splogs, warez sites and other crap. Naturally the first thing I did was too look for a solution and was soon guided towards stopbadware.org. I then rapidly read all of the documentation available on the website, checked for any malware(it confirms that a third-party partner still registers malware presence), used their step by step guide and submited a review application.

The problem is I hear this sorta thing kinda lasts forever to solve, from what I’ve been reading on forums. Please, if any of you have ever experienced any such issues or has knowledge that may help me get unflagged I’d be terribly grateful.

UPDATE: Lost Art Of Blogging got unflagged by Google, after completing a few easy, but critical steps. Thanks to all the fine people down at stopbadware.com for their constant support and patience. The whole experience has convinced me to write a step by step guide on how to get the malware flag off, to help other innocent bloggers, that got screwed over.

The Lost Art Of Blogging flagged by Google by Tibi Puiu, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

14 Replies

Jasa
Feb 14th, 2008 at 6:33 pm

Spam them with review applications? Or track your plugins and check which ones seem funny, check your uploads whether there are unneccessary files and also your sql databases.. Just in case..

All the best mate, I’ll inform you if I know of any useful steps..

Jasa
45n5
Feb 14th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

1. get rid of wordpress

http://www.45n5.com/permalink/wordpress-sucks.html

2. it happened to me also

http://www.45n5.com/permalink/how-one-line-of-code-can-destroy-your-online-busin.html

3. after filling out the request they removed the penalty a few days later, my serps and traffic returned about 2 weeks later

however, almost 4 months later and my site still doesn’t have it’s pagerank back.

I don’t care about the pagerank, just glad my traffic returned the site isn’t 45n5.com it’s another one i have
Rajeev Edmonds
Feb 15th, 2008 at 1:44 am

Yes , about one week back when I was opening your blog, a file “wp-stats.php” was catched by NOD32 AntiVir on by PC. Today 15th Feb its working fine no more warning pop ups from my AntiVir.

As far as getting unflagged is concerned, for that you have to wait till the crawler again deep scan your blog. It will take about 2-3 weeks.
Tibi Puiu
Feb 15th, 2008 at 7:12 am

@Jasa: thanks for your help man.
@Mark: Bummer man, hope it doesn’t happen to me too, glad you had it all sort out eventually.
@Rajeev: hope that means that the blog’s malware free now, but 2-3 weeks seems like awfully long time. Better then never I guess.
Wayne Liew
Feb 17th, 2008 at 6:21 am

How did the hackers got through? Maybe you should run some security checks of your Wordpress as a hole might have its presence somewhere.

It will be best if you are able to provide the most thorough details regarding the hack to Google.

I know this will give a big punch on the face of your blog but be patient with Google as everything will be sorted out since I don’t get infected while visiting this blog though (I read your blog with full of trust).
Tibi Puiu
Feb 17th, 2008 at 9:12 am

Don’t think there’s any breaches anymore. I’ve cleaned up all the code and upgraded to the latest version of wordpress. It all depends on time now.. and Google. And thanks again Wayne for your support :D.
TzuVelli
Feb 20th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

I am glad to hear you are well on your way to recovering from being hacked.

Beau
TzuVelli.com
Tibi Puiu
Feb 20th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Flag lifted. Thanks for everybody’s support during this tough period.
Ryan
Mar 11th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

This must be old cause you are no longer flagged as harmful
Clifford
Mar 12th, 2008 at 1:05 am

The only malware on this site is your bad grammar.
jim
Sep 24th, 2009 at 7:34 am

Don’t think there’s any breaches anymore. I’ve cleaned up all the code and upgraded to the latest version of wordpress. It all depends on time now.. and Google. And thanks again Wayne for your support :D.

1 Sunday Quickies: 17 February | Lost Art Of Blogging Pingback on Feb 17th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[...] week’s hack not only gave me a big scare, but it also got me flagged by Google. As you read in the respective post, I’ve taken all the necessary steps to assure I get [...]
2 An Old WordPress Version Can Get You Banned In Google Pingback on Feb 21st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
[...] Lost Art Of Blogging [...]
3 Fighting Blog Hacks: Preventing And Eliminating Intruders | Lost Art Of Blogging Pingback on Mar 6th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[...] as always, was quick on scanning LOAB for any malicious software, found some corrupted code and immediately flagged the blog. What happened next was very predictable: who ever tried to search to for something on Google and [...]