Re: Garden Website Hacked According to Google

**M* P* D* <m*@dargan.com>**

Times are hard enough for nurseries without added digital burdens inhibiting their message getting out. 

On Jan 3, 2013, at 8:07 AM, Doug Green <gardeningemail@gmail.com> wrote:

> MP - it's no big issue for us to change a few links (the software
> immediately identified all pages) but Terra Nova has a problem on their
> hands with the malware and getting Google to free up their site.  They
> haven't blocked them yet on their search engine (sometimes they actively
> identify the search results with a malware note) but when/if you click on a
> TerraNova link, you clearly get a warning.    The updates are still active
> as of this morning - Google believes the site is infected on an index today.
> 
> Doug
> 
> On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 7:50 AM, Mary Palmer Dargan <mpdargan@dargan.com>wrote:
> 
>> Dear Doug, What a pity and inconvenience for you and terrible for Terra
>> Nova. I like their products so much. I've sent info on this to my VA so she
>> can add it to my Wordpress hosted site. Thx for the heads up.
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On Jan 3, 2013, at 7:25 AM, Doug Green <gardeningemail@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> When I said I would add some note about Wordpress Plugins, I hadn't
>>> considered adding them quite so quickly but one plugin in particular has
>>> proven to be quite worthwhile over the last few weeks so I thought I'd
>> pass
>>> this one along because I'm sure you can all use it.
>>> 
>>> Certainly one of our own needs some assistance right about now.
>>> 
>>> It's called Wordfence Security by Maunder (author name) and it's exactly
>>> what it sounds like - a security system for your self-hosted Wordpress
>>> installation.
>>> 
>>> it scans your files looking for "issues" on an ongoing basis and sends
>>> along both the simple (you need to upgrade XX plugin) to banal (XX
>>> subscriber has a weak password that can be hacked) to critical issues
>>> requiring immediate action.
>>> 
>>> One of the critical ones landed on my desk last night to give me a New
>>> Year's present this morning when I unfolded the laptop after our trip.
>>> Emails with "critical" in their heading get my attention as do the big
>> red
>>> Xs on the plugin report screen. ;-(
>>> 
>>> Terra Nova - who I link to on one of my sites - has been identified by
>>> Google as hosting malware.  In other words, it's been hacked.  And their
>>> "Google reputation" is pretty much in the compost bin.  So the outward
>>> links I had on my site were flagged as leading to a malware site and my
>>> readers might be infected if they went there.
>>> 
>>> The first thing I did was to email Dan and the PR company handling their
>>> account (I don't have the tech guys email)
>>> 
>>> The second thing I did this morning was to remove those links.  This not
>>> only preserves my readers experience, it also preserves my reputation
>> with
>>> Google.
>>> 
>>> There's no secret about this now as Chrome is now blocking TerraNova (if
>>> you try to get to the nursery website using the Chrome browser, you
>> can't.
>>> 
>>> As soon as Terra Nova gets itself cleaned up with Google - then I will
>>> restore all links
>>> 
>>> The important point here is that TerraNova may have cleaned up their
>> site,
>>> it may be a false positive or they may be infected. But whatever - Google
>>> thinks they're infected so the tech team there has to do something
>>> immediately to fix the issue on their site and with Google.
>>> 
>>> And this plugin notified me of the issue so I could take proactive steps
>> to
>>> preserve my own site integrity and ranking with Google.
>>> 
>>> You may want to experiment with this plugin and temporarily remove
>>> TerraNova links on your own site to preserve your own site integrity with
>>> Google
>>> 
>>> And as soon as I get some kind of feedback I will let this list know
>>> immediately.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Doug
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> 
>>> Doug Green
>>> Helping a million readers a month
>>> http://www.douggreensgarden.com/about.html <
>> http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com>
>>> https://www.amazon.com/author/douglasgreen
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Doug Green
> http://www.douggreensgarden.com/about.html <http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com>
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