Website blacklisted by Google: What You Need To Know (2021)

You may be wondering what to do when your website blacklisted by Google, and you have no idea how it happened. If so, this blog post is for you! In the next few paragraphs, I will give five tips on how you can get back up and running as quickly as possible without having to worry about a blacklist in the future.

The following 5 things you can do when your WordPress site is blacklisted for some known or unknown reason.

Table of Contents

1. WARN YOUR USERS OF THE MALWARE

The first thing we want to do is turn on maintenance mode on your site. The guys over at WP Beginner have a pretty in-depth article on how to put your WordPress site in maintenance mode.

If you’re looking for a quick fix install the WP Maintenance Mode plugin. This will allow you to put a warning message on your website. It’s fast, easy and you don’t need any technical experience!

2. CHANGE ALL YOUR PASSWORDS

It is important to change all your passwords after a data breach, especially if you have sensitive information. We recommend changing the passwords to your WordPress admin & cpanel.

If you’re logged into the WordPress User section and changing your password, check for other random users created by this hack. If they exist, then delete those.

Lastly, if your username is something obvious like “admin”, “user” we recommend changing that too. In most cases you can’t just change a username in WordPress, you will need to create a new user with administrative writes. Then log in as that new users, and delete the old “admin” user.

3. SCAN YOUR WEBSITE

One of the best things to do in order to protect your website from being hacked is to scan it with Sucuri’s free tool. Some instances of Cpanel also come with a Virus Scanner tool. Just search for “Virus Scanner” in your cpanel and run it on the website files.

You can use the following free malware scan here.

4. REMOVING THE MALWARE

If it is the first time that you came across the scenario of WordPress Site Blacklisted problem, then the best solution is to upgrade your CMS or Content Management System to its latest version.

And, the sooner you do this, the better it is for your website.

1. Log into your FTP and take a backup of all your files.
2. Download a fresh copy of WordPress – Download WordPress here
3. Delete all files on the root except for the wp-config.php file. This includes – all the wp-….php files, index.php and anything that looks suspicious.
4. Delete the wp-admin and wp-includes folder.
5. Unzip the WordPress download you did in step 2.
6. Copy across all the files on the root and the wp-admin and wp-includes folder.
7. Test your site and make sure it’s working.
8. Do a scan as in step 3 – scan your website.
9. If there is still malware it is likely to be in the plugins folder or the theme.
10. Re-download all your plugins from the WordPress site and then delete all plugin folders and re-upload
11. Repeat step 8.
12. If still not removed, then you will need to re-download your theme where you purchased it from. If you have made changes to the theme, please make sure you are careful.
13. If you are still having issues, we are here to help, so please get in touch with us, we’re always happy to help!

5. GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS

Login on Google webmaster using the following URL: Google Webmaster Tools

Remember – if you do not have a Google account, then you have to register a new one to use the webmaster’s tools.

In order to add your site to Google Webmaster Tools, open the “Add Site” option on its homepage. As soon as you add your site and follow the instructions for verification, start submitting URLs manually and tracking incoming links.

Next head over to Security & Manual Actions >> Security issues – in here you’ll be able to request Google to rescan your site.

Remember, this may take several hours or a day before Google clears your website.

Website blacklisted by Google: Conclusion

If you’re looking for a quick way to get your site back up and running, contact My Site Got Hacked. We will work with you to identify the problem caused because your website blacklisted by Google in the first place so we can make sure it never happens again.

Whether you need help removing malware from your WordPress site or have been penalised by Google because of lackadaisical SEO practices, we can work out what has gone wrong on your website and fix it.

It’s best not to let any problems linger when they could be resolved without causing more damage down the line.