You spent hours, maybe even hundreds of hours developing your website. You placed links where they need to go, you thought carefully about tags and categories and your websites code is flawless. Yet, six months down the road you are finding yourself stuck in some sort of SERP black hole. Keywords, long-tail keywords, whatever you do is falling on deaf ears.
The first thought might be that your focusing on the wrong keywords or that your product simply isn’t meeting the demand of the consumer. In reality the problem could be a basic option that is sometimes overlooked — a virus.
Many new webmasters or business developers simply overlook the potential that their websites have been flagged for some type of malicious code. Sometimes that code is injected by hackers and sometimes too many virus hits from an ad network can send up a red flag.
Thankfully this ding against your website can be fixed relatively quickly. The first step is simply to perform a full website scan. You can perform that scan by visiting http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner. When your virus scan is complete the scan will provide valuable feedback. For example, is your site blacklisted by any of the major online security scanning firms.
If you discover a virus on your system the first step is simply to remove the bad code that is causing the conflict. If you have a decent web host they can likely help track down your websites virus location. After you have removed the virus you will need to contact any services that have blacklisted your website. For example, if McAfee has placed a blacklist tag on your website you can use the company’s reporting tool to ask for a clean bill of health.
After a virus is removed and reported webmasters should update their websites platform to ensure no future breaches. Popular content management systemssuch as WordPress often update their files with security fixes and other protocols. Webmasters should also check with their hosting provider to ensure that all proper security patches are provided for their service.
Remember that purchasing the best antivirus software for your website or service is a great first step but ultimately you need to be pro-active with site updates and website scanning. You can also purchase a pro-active virus scan account that will monitor your site at all times.
Always remember to start by securing your own computers so you don’t pass on a virus to your website. You can find information about competent virus scan programs by visiting our friends at best antivirus. They provide extensive reviews for all of the major antivirus platforms currently available on the market.
If your website is suffering and you seem to be doing everything right just conduct a simple and free two minute virus scan and you might be surprised at the results you receive.
Originally posted on October 2, 2013 @ 8:00 am