Back in April 2007, Google gave webmasters a new easy way to remove content in Google, through Google Webmaster Tools. It is a great feature to quickly remove your content in Google, but it is an extremely powerful tool. If the wrong people gain access to your webmaster tools account, either by getting your username and password or by hacking into your site and validating your site on their webmaster tools account - you can be in bad shape.
Not only can they remove your site from Google, which is incredibly bad, they can also gain competitive knowledge on your site. Google Webmaster Tools provides detailed linkage data, detailed keyword data and much much more on your site. So if a competitor or evil person gains access, they cannot only do major damage, but also take all your sensitive data.
Besides for changing your Google Account password every now and then, you should also reverify your site owners in webmaster tools. To do so, login to Google Webmaster Tools, click on Tools and then click on Manage site verification. Then when the page comes up and if you see other verification files, you may want to click on the "Reverify all site owners" button, if a verification file doesn't look right. This feature should remove all access to webmaster tools and require re verification. If, indeed, someone uploaded a verification file, you will want to look into a security breach on your server.
A recent Google Webmasters Help thread has a site owner that seems to have had his site removed by some evil doer. In short, Google confirmed that someone with verificaiton access has removed his site via the Google Webmaster Tools feature. This is not the first time this has happened, we reported a similar case in early February. Don't let this happen to you.
Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 9th.
