Google search attorney John Mueller recently responded a publication on Reddit from a website owner who has seen a significant increase in indexed foreign language pages.
The website owner reported that more than 20,000 Japanese and Chinese pages suddenly appeared on their site, which they did not create or intend to host. They asked the Reddit community for help to remove unwanted pages and restore their site’s ranking.
Mueller suggested ways to clean up the problem and prevent it from happening again.
the incident
The website owner said that Google indexed thousands of foreign language pages in one day and that they did not exist in the back-end website management system, known as cPanel.
This led the owner to worry that his website may have been the victim of a security breach or misconfiguration that allowed unknown people to post content.
The sudden influx of pages is a technique known in search engine optimization circles as “Japanese keyword hacking.”
Authors can manipulate search results by flooding a site with spam pages optimized for Japanese keywords.
These attacks are a growing threat to website security and integrity, and the Reddit user’s situation highlights the need for increased vigilance.
Mueller’s Guide
In response to the call for help, Mueller confirmed that the website had been hacked and said the next step was to identify how the breach occurred.
Mueller advised:
“Since someone has hacked your site, even if you’ve cleaned up the hacked traces, it’s important to understand how they did it, so you can make sure old vulnerabilities are blocked.”
He advised that even after the traces of the hack are cleaned up, it is crucial to understand how it happened to block these vulnerabilities.
Mueller suggested that automatic updates and potentially switching to a hosting platform that manages security could be beneficial solutions.
SEO implications
Mueller said that once a site’s most important pages are cleaned of unwanted content, they can quickly be re-indexed.
He said there’s no need to worry about old hacked pages that remain indexed but invisible to users, as they can stay that way for months without issue.
“Old pages will stay indexed for months, they don’t cause any problems if they tend not to be seen.”
Mueller also clarified that spam backlinks pointing to these invisible indexed pages do not require disclaimers.
Instead, he advised focusing cleanup efforts on a site’s visible content and avoiding indexing internal search results.
Spam link management and indexing
The website owner asked Mueller for advice on spam backlinks causing internal search pages to be indexed.
Mueller clarified that this was separate from the hacking issue. He recommended against disavowing links, saying the pages would drop out of search results over time.
He advised proactively blocking search results pages for any new or existing sites to prevent potential exploitation by spammers.
“Block search results indexing (robots.txt or noindex). For new/other sites I would generally block search results pages from indexing, no need to wait until someone exploits your site like this.”
Insights for SEO professionals
This dialogue with Mueller highlights the importance of proactive measures to prevent hacking and link spam from harming sites’ search rankings.
Regular security updates, malware scans, and link audits should be part of your routine maintenance. Websites share the responsibility with search engines to keep results free of pirated content and spam.
Featured Image: ColorMaker/Shutterstock
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