What to do if my website was hacked: step-by-step
If your site was hacked, follow 7 steps: 1) Temporarily take site offline to protect visitors, 2) Change all passwords (hosting, FTP, CMS, DB), 3) Restore clean backup or do clean CMS reinstall, 4) Find entry point (server logs, temp files), 5) Close vulnerabilities (update CMS, plugins), 6) Remove malicious code, 7) Request review in Google Search Console to remove 'This site may harm your computer' warning. SEO recovery: 1–6 months.
If your site was hacked, act in the right order: protect visitors first, then restore, then deal with SEO consequences. Every day with a hacked site = ranking loss, "this site may harm your computer" warning risk, customer data leak.
7 recovery steps
- Take site offline temporarily (503 status).
- Change all passwords (hosting, FTP, CMS, DB).
- Restore clean backup or clean CMS reinstall.
- Find entry point via server logs.
- Close vulnerabilities (update CMS, plugins).
- Remove malicious code (Sucuri, Wordfence scan).
- Request review in Google Search Console.
Prevention
- Daily backups for e-commerce.
- 2FA everywhere.
- Weekly CMS/plugin updates.
- Remove unused plugins.
- Strong passwords (password manager).
- Firewall (Cloudflare free tier).
SEO consequences
- "This site may harm" warning — 90% CTR loss.
- Pages removed from index.
- Position loss.
- Recovery: 1–6 months.
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