How to Get Yourself Removed from the Google Blacklist

Submitted by Robert Abela on April 10, 2012 - 4:28 pm 13 Comments

If your website or blog is infected by malware, there is a chance that it could end up on the Google Blacklist. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t care whether or not it’s your fault that malware appeared on your website. All Google cares about is the well-being of the users that visit your website, therefore the search engine leader places you on the infamous Google Blacklist until you can prove that all traces of malware have been removed.

The problem is that it’s not easy getting your website or blog removed from the Google Blacklist. Google notifies you if you’ve been placed on their list. The difficult process starts when you’re trying to figure out the type of malware your website has been infected with. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months to find and remove all traces of malware. Some website owners have needed to setup a brand new website or blog. Why? Well, as your current website is on the Google Blacklist, it means that you’re not getting the hits that you used to get via Google’s organic search results. This is because users are warned by Google that your website might be infected with malicious code. Anyone entering your website from Google will be shown a large malware warning and that the user can enter at their own risk. As a result, your website search engine optimisation rankings and traffic can be very badly affected or even destroyed, which definitely impacts your business and sales.

In short, you certainly don’t want to be on the Google blacklist for any length of time. If you want to know if your website has been blacklisted by Google, you’ll need to have a Google account and access Google Webmaster Tools. Once you’ve accessed Google Webmaster Tools, register your website and an email address where Google will notify you in case of any malware infection.

If you receive a message from Google that your website is distributing malware and has therefore been blacklisted, here are the steps that you need to take to get yourself removed from the list:

Determine the Problem – Is your website contaminated with website malware? Has someone injected malicious code into your website and therefore turned it into a phishing site? Whatever the case, you need to fix the problem as soon as possible. After WebsiteDefender has scanned your website, you can see all the infected file(s) or link(s).Thanks to the file integrity validation feature you will be able to view any changes that have been made to your web files and any files that have been added or deleted, so that you can easily restore the original ones. If any malicious code has been added to your existing files, it is important that you delete only the lines of codes and not the entire file. Some users have wrongly thought that it’s easier to simply delete the infected files that the WebsiteDefender scan report has presented. Unfortunately, this could lead to 404 error messages or even severely damage your website.

Change your Website Password – After your website is clean, make sure to change your passwords! After all, you don’t know how and why you got infected. In some cases, hackers have guessed the admin credentials. One big and common mistake made by many is that they use guessable credentials such as ‘admin’ as a username, and ‘password’ as the password. For more information on how to better set your credentials, view our web passwords article here.

Negotiate with Google – Now that things are fixed, you need to tell Google that everything is taken care of. You need to request a review from Google, or else it will forever remain on the blacklist. Google doesn’t automatically remove sites. On the first email notification received from Google to inform you that your website is blacklisted, you will find a link to request this review. Alternatively you can request a review from this link .

Add Security Measures – If someone got in once you need to make sure it can’t happen again. It’s not enough just to delete malware. Figure out how the malware got in there in the first place, and take additional steps to ensure hackers can’t get in again. With WebsiteDefender you can increase your website security and prevent hacker attacks.

That’s essentially it. The whole process can be arduous as finding, fixing, and removing malware can be extremely time consuming. With this in mind, it’s so much easier to be proactive and invest in a website security solution like WebsiteDefender to avoid getting malware in the first place, rather than having to deal with all the issues that surround removing malware and then having to work with Google to get off the blacklist.

Make sure your website remains clean and off the Google Blacklist by signing up for your WebsiteDefender account today!

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