Webmaster Using My Company Name in Title
I have a webmaster that is selling adwords, using my company name in his titles on mutiple scam pages, the actual content on the pages has nothing to do with my company. Example, Scam Report ABC Financial, Rude ABC Financial, Bad ABC Financial, Fraud ABC Financial.
Is there anything I can do, as these pages pull up when my company name is googled.
Greg K posted this at 20:54 — 26th May 2012.
He has: 2,145 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
Hello, and welcome to the forum. If you are referring to the company for the site you have in your e-mail (I am a moderator, it isn't viewable to the public), then the most likely issue is that the site with those pages were hacked.
I went ahead and e-mailed that company, just letting them know about the pages I am pretty sure they don't know about on their site (the pages are buried deep down in some directories, that someone going in to the edit the site would be less likely to notice). So if it is like I think that they are a legit company that got compromised, they'd probably have the links removed next week, then give time for google to determine the links are dead and the results will be gone.
If you find it on other sites you may need to notify them too (the site I found, their main site (if you just go to their domain name itself), in generalized terms, is a "boat" company.
-Greg
peterfonda posted this at 22:00 — 26th May 2012.
They have: 4 posts
Joined: May 2012
Thanks Greg..
peterfonda posted this at 22:04 — 26th May 2012.
They have: 4 posts
Joined: May 2012
Greg,
So you think that these pages were added to someones website without their knowledge? Very interesting, but you would think Adwords would pick it up?
Greg K posted this at 06:42 — 27th May 2012.
He has: 2,145 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
Yes, when I was looking around, looking at which pages google had indexed, I found links to a blog that they don't use anymore. Old outdated (and most importantly, non-updated) copies of wordpress can be quite dangerous.
There are lists out there that tell hackers what vulnerabilities are available for different versions of WP and popular plugins, and how to check for them.
My guess would be that since they are using version 2.5 of wordpress (current is 3.3.2), someone used it to hack their site. In looking them up, found their URL on several spammish Facebook postings, advertising their site for "pay day loans".
As for the thing about adwords picking it up, have to keep in mind there are tons of companies that have a site out there that work on it hwne they have an update, but don't care too much past that. The site we are talking about, they do not even have google analytics running.
I would give it till the end of next week for them to get to their e-mail and take care of it (keep in mind Monday is a holiday, and having fishing boats, I know I'd be out on the ocean! LOL If at that point the pages are still there, then drop them a note on their facebook account. after that, then contact Dreamhost (where their site is hosted) asking them for help, give them some sample URL's let them know when / how you contacted their customer. If it gets to that point, feel free to PM me (or just ask me on this thread) and send you an example of what I would write.
But to sum it all up, IMO it is a case of a prime example of why everyone needs to monitor their sites.
-Greg
peterfonda posted this at 20:41 — 6th July 2012.
They have: 4 posts
Joined: May 2012
Hi Greg,
First I want to say once again thank you very much. You contacted the websites in question and had the links removed.
Might need some SEO work, please let me know if you are intereted, quite impressed.
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