Find Hidden Links On Your Site? Where Did It Come From?

Mar 13, 2008 - 6:21 am 0 by
Filed Under Spam

A Google Groups thread has several smart webmasters aiding a webmaster who found links on his site via the Google cache. In short, the links are not visible when viewing the page in the browser, but they are visible when viewing the page via the Google Cache. He asks how can this be.

One of the cool parts of this thread is that the webmaster won't give up the URL of his site. So we have smart webmasters and even Googler's offering ideas on how a link can end up on a site without knowing about it or seeing it.

JLH tells the webmaster to try changing their useragent to see if it is a cloaking thing. The main thing is to first find the problem, then find the source, and then get rid of it. Googler comes in and adds:

JLH beat me to the punch. Thanks for the quick, thorough response, John! I'm sorry to hear about your site--but I agree with his diagnosis. I still wish we had a URL to look at to confirm our suspicions, though.

To fix the problem, I'd look for any scripts (asp, aspx, etc.) that you didn't write, delete them, and update any CMS you are running, since CMS's are the most frequent targets of hacks. Usually security holes are used to upload scripts that create and hide the text.

In this case, what was the issue? One of the pages had some bad "code in some user controls (.ascx)." The webmaster added:

One of the files had this script in the page. I deleted/cleaned the page and pasted in to the production environment. We have Front Page Server Extensions and Web DAV.

This is not uncommon at all.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2024

Mar 18, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: What Would You Do With Your Google AdSense Account Manager?