Any form of hack is devastating for a website owner. Hacking completely ruins a website and its functioning. It lowers the reputation of the business in the market if not fixed in time. Hence, one needs to be careful about the website security and stay updated about every update. Updates help to keep the website protected and enhance security.
If Google or any other search engine finds your website as malicious then it immediately flags your website and lowers it to protect its users. The web hosting account immediately suspends your account until the hack isn’t fixed. This also ruins your reputation among the regular visitors as well as in the market.
What is a Japanese Keyword Hack?
Japanese Keyword Hack is a situation where hackers add malicious Japanese words to your page. They can also add links to affiliate products on your web pages and compel visitors to buy these products. If visitors click on this link, buy the product, and find the product is a fake one, then you will lose one loyal customer. The moment one product is sold with the help of this malicious link the hacker gets his commission. Therefore, this is accounted as one of the dangerous hacks for a website.
In such situations, the page is indexed by Google and the website starts searching for Japanese keywords. If you want to identify whether your site has been affected by the Japanese keyword hack then on Google you can type in site:yourwebsitename.com or site:yourwebsitename.com japan.
How to Identify Japanese Keyword Hack and Heal a Website from it?
Identification of Japanese Keyword Hack is a bit of a task because hackers cleverly disguise themselves to operate through your website. They take the help of the ‘Cloaking’ method that disguises the spam Japanese words from the website owner but is visible on all search engines. By keeping the font color similar to the background and keeping the font tiny they try to disguise the malicious links and keywords. The keywords can also be hidden in the header and footer.
Japanese Keyword Hack can be identified in two ways:
- Manual way
- With the help of using a security plugin
To clean a website with the help of a security plugin one must ensure the plugin should have the following qualities:
- Scanning of every folders and file of the website quickly
- Check for the cloaked hidden malicious files and links
- Detect the known as well as new malicious codes
- No false positives
Steps to Identify Japanese Keyword Hack with the help of a Plugin
- Scan for malware
- Clean the malware
- Check your website on Google SERP
- Request Google to crawl your website
- Install WordPress security plugin and Firewall
Steps to Clean the Hack Manually
- One needs to connect to the website with the help of File Manager in cPanel of the web hosting account.
- Find the public_html folder.
- In the search bar search for spam keywords.
- Check out the recently modified files to know if any changes were made in your absence.
- After identifying the malicious codes and links, delete them.
- Have a check at your .htaccess file as well.
The procedure takes a long time and one needs to be perfect in it as well. Therefore, it is advised to use security plugins for cleaning the hack with the help of their auto-clean option.
Conclusion
The following write-up is an informative article about Japanese Keyword Hack and how it can affect your website. The hack damages the website hence it should be cleaned immediately. It is also recommended to clean the hack with the help of website security plugins rather than going in for the manual method.