Hi Thanks your replies and help everyone (sarcasm)...
Just to let you all know that the site has most probably been
penalised by Google for these links - dropping from PR3 (where it has
been for the last 2+ years to my knowledge) to a PR1.
Does anyone at Google want to comment on what systems they do or do
not have in place to stop this sort of thing happening - or advice on
how we can regain our vandalised website to its previous state?
Its not good at all that competitors can destroy a whitehat website so
easily. We create lots of quality content and stick by the rules... so
this really isn't on.
Thanks
Colin
Some very mean person - I am assuming a blackhat wearing competitor -
bought lots of horrible links to our website. When I say horrible, I
mean they came from Russian sites, Adult themed Russian websites,
sites that generally will look appalling to be associated with (no
offence meant to Russians!). It was clear they had been bought through
a link broker - and we tracked it down to one of the big few link
broker companies - who has as of today removed them.
I would like to know if anyone knows the est thing to do... we have
had the offending links (we know of) removed... But they evidently
existed long enough to get into our list of links in Webmaster Tools -
where we first spotted them.
Apparently they were only spending a few dollars, but because the
links were from such horrificly poor sites they got them at the
cheapest rate.
Help, advice, thoughts from a Google rep - would be much appreciated.
7 messages in com.googlegroups.google_webmaster_help-toolsRe: Nasty Nasty Blackhat Attack
