It has been one week since we fixed a compromise in our Google Search console that had us placing on page 12 for a search of “Sandpoint Website Design” and “Sandpoint Web Design.” This compromise happened about six months ago and we had no time to try and fix the problem as it was not really a top priority for us. We had a major project to help a company build a cohesive brand package and launch their business while maintaining our current client base. It was all we could handle at the time. And it was covid.
But it is a priority now. And we decided to log the process and results.
The compromise was discovered in a very deeply hidden plug-in in the Google search console. After repairing the compromise, we performed our basic on-site SEO protocol to refresh our website to see how far up the Google search list we could place for the key phrases mentioned above. Again it has been one week and we are placing at position 6 for “Sandpoint Website Design” and position 5 for “Sandpoint Web Design.”
One week! We couldn’t be happier. Our goal is to place consistently in the top three positions for all our target key phrases but we are focusing on these for now.
So why did we experience this problem? We monitor our websites on our servers daily and have many programs in place to alert us if an attempt to compromise any of our websites. We thought we had been compromised but our server and our website was spotless.
We tested the search on other search engines and noticed that we only were being affected on Google. That narrowed the problem down and we started looking at Google services and accounts. Our amazing programmer extraordinaire narrowed it down to Google Search Console and a reported rare compromise that was affecting search results. Once we found the problem fixing it was easy.
But now we had to climb back up the search results list. Everyone wants to be number one on the list so we have a few competitors to contend with. This was the perfect setting to test our SEO protocol. We believe in a well rounded approach that is both on-site but uses various other outlets and techniques that we feel performs well. So far the results speak for themselves.
If you have a problem being indexed on Google or if your website just isn’t appearing in results there are a few factors that may be negatively affecting your websites performance. We may be able to help with your SEO but it can be an involved process.