How to Remove “This Site May Be Hacked” Warning from Google

Here’s a Quick Guide on how to Fix Google “This site may be hacked” Warning

Google Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers in the world. If you’ve got a website, then it’s likely many of your site visitors are coming through Google Chrome. And there’s one very obvious reason why Google Chrome is so popular. Along with its user-friendly nature and sleek design, it offers incomparable security.

Google Chrome is well known for showing security warning messages that alert their users that they think a website isn’t safe to visit. One such crucial warning message is the “This site may be hacked” warning message.

If you’re the website owner that’s dealing with this warning message and wondering how to remove the “this site may be hacked” message from Google, then you’ve come to the right place. Here we’ll discuss what the Google warning message “this site may be hacked” means, what causes it, and how to remove it.

Before we get into the details, one thing to note is that the Google warning message “this site may be hacked” is quite vague and difficult to take immediate action against because you might not be aware of the exact reason that caused the warning message.

However, what you should know is that this Google warning message occurs when there is some type of malware infection on your website that further spreads spam.

How to Remove the Warning “This Site May Be Hacked” From Google

Once you confirm your site has been issued the Google warning message “this site may be hacked,” your next move should be to remove it. To remove this warning from Google, you’ll need to follow these four steps:

Analyze the Extent of the Hack
Remove Malware
Request Google To Re-index Your Website
Prevent Future Attacks

Analyze the Extent of Hack

It’s important to find out how much damage has been done to your website. First, go back to the Google Search Console and click on the Security & Manual Actions section. Now, click the infected web page section and click on the link named “Learn More” in the “Detected Issues” section.

Now, find out where the infection is coming from. For instance:

Any webpage, such as blog.website.com/pages/infectedpage.php
Through a group of pages like blog.website.com/pages
Any post – blog.website.com/web-post1/
Through your blog page – blog.website.com/
Through your whole domain or sub-domain like website.com

For instance, here the infected subdirectory named “Photos” is causing the warning message. Knowing where the malware is coming from will help tremendously when making your next move.

Furthermore, to find out when malware gets into your website, it’s better to check the date when Google came across the spam on your site, which is next to the URLs flagged under the section called “Detected Issues” in the “Security & Manual Actions” tab.

By doing this, you’ll be able to identify whether any installed theme or plugin around the displayed date is the reason for this warning message. Because many times unpatched themes and plugins can cause an issue that goes unnoticed until it’s too late.

It’s also recommended to check a timestamp through “Test Live URL” once you complete a URL inspection for all the blacklisted webpages.

Remove Malware

Removing malware from your website is the most critical step you’ll take. If you fail to remove malware, you won’t be able to convince Google to remove the “this site may be hacked” warning. Also, it’s a difficult step to execute.

There are two different ways to remove malware from your site.

Remove malware using a malware scanner.
Manual removal of malware – difficult and not recommended to those who aren’t skilled at coding.

It’s recommended you avoid removing malware manually because there’s a chance you might forget to remove it from some pages. At worse, you can even wreck your site. Instead, it’s best to go for a malware scanner that can help find and remove it for you.

Some reasons behind avoiding manual removal of malware are:

You must know coding languages such as PHP, JavaScript, and HTML because malicious codes look like normal and safe codes.
It’s a time-consuming task. Even if you’re a skilled coder, you still need excellent processes and bandwidth to handle the task.

Request Google To Re-index Your Website

Once you remove malware and clean your website, your next step is to request to re-index your website through your Google Search Console. The steps are:

Log in to the Google Search Console and go to the “Security & Manual Actions” tab.
Check “I have fixed these issues.”
Click the button, “Request a Review.”
Now, you’ll be redirected to the template, where you should describe all the actions you took to remove the malware and fix your website. Be as clear as possible and click on the “Submit Request” button. button.
Now, click on the Manual Actions section.
Now, repeat the first four steps and resolve the other security issues on Google.

Note:

Once you submit a request to remove the Google warning message “this site may be hacked,” it’ll take around three days to review your request and remove the website warning. And finally, in 72 hours, you should be able to see your website working normally!

How to Prevent “This site may be hacked” Warning in the Future

Once you clean your website and the Google warning is removed, your next move should be to avoid future issues that can lead to this or any other warning message. Hence, you’ll need to take proper security measures such as:

Keep Software Updated: Every software comes with certain expiry. It’s recommended you keep your installed plugins and CMS software updated with provided patches. Developers offer security patches for the vulnerabilities that are detected. If you don’t keep up with the security patches, your website will remain open to vulnerabilities. Secondly, it’s also best to remove those unused plugins, extensions, and themes that aren’t updated or used.
Strong Passwords: Brute force attack is often the reason behind websites getting hacked, which further leads to warning messages like “This site may be hacked.” It’s an attack where an attacker tries a commonly used username and password to login into your website. It’s a trial-and-error method. To prevent this type of attack, all you will need to do is use strong passwords that aren’t easy to remember. Instead of your pet’s name or your cousin’s name, make a long password containing letters in upper and lower case, numbers, and symbols.
Vulnerability Scanning: Vulnerabilities in your website can become a major opening for hackers. It’s recommended that you set up a vulnerability scanner, such as HackerGuardian PCI Scanning, that reviews your website code and makes you aware of possible weaknesses. With this tool you can fix issues before they get exploited by an attacker.
Regular Malware Scanning: Many website owners take the scanning part for granted. It’s recommended that you scan your website regularly. Malware scanning your website is the equivalent to a health checkup. Using malware scanning offered by a respected provider will help mitigate threats and prevent your site from being attacked.
Webmaster Tools: If you haven’t registered your site with the Google Webmaster tool, also known as Google Search Console, it’s recommended you do so. It’ll help you by notifying you if any security issues with your website arise. Also, it gives you an option of Google Alert to get priority-based notifications, so you don’t miss out on any important information.
Choose Secure Web Hosting Provider: Many look for cheap hosting, but it’s better to look for a secure web hosting provider that keeps everything updated according to your chosen CMS. For instance, if you go for a secure WordPress hosting provider, you’ll get all the security features, updates, patches, and other things needed to run any WordPress site securely and flawlessly while providing a smooth experience to site visitors.

FAQs

What Does Google Warning “This site may be hacked” Mean for Your Site Visitors?

Firstly, site visitors won’t be interested in visiting your website if they find a warning on their search results. Furthermore, even if they do visit your site, they will be taking some risks (which will reflect poorly on your business), such as:

Once they visit your website, ransomware may get downloaded onto their system. This means that their private data will be held hostage until the hacker gets a ransom amount.
Your site visitor’s computer system may get crashed, and files get deleted.
Leaked or loss financial data (or other important information) that you collect from your site visitors.
Downloaded and installed malware without your site visitor’s permission or knowledge, which can further damage or even hack their computer system.

What’s the Meaning of the Google Chrome Warning Message “This site may be hacked”?

Put simply, “this site may be hacked” from Google means your website is blacklisted. According to Google’s Safe Browsing security standards, your website is “malicious,” which means it’s not safe for its users.

Google believes your website is hacked, and it contains malicious content that can spam their users. Suppose any Google Chrome user visits your website. In that case, it’ll forcibly download Trojans, viruses, or any other potentially unwanted programs into their computer system that can further do damage to the site visitors.

Suppose your website is among those who are facing the warning message “this site may be hacked.” In that case, your business will be affected because such warning messages appearing on Google Search results will scare away users.

Also, Google categorizes compromised websites into two different categories:

Attack Websites – These are the sites that host software capable of affecting the website visitor’s computer negatively. Google marks such websites by showing a warning message “This website may harm your computer.”
Hacked Websites – These are the websites that may host spam content added by the hacker. Google flags these types of websites with the warning message, “This site may be hacked.”

The worst part is that these warnings don’t fade away until you fix the issue. It means you can incur a serious loss as you’ll be losing potential customers whenever someone visits your site.

How to Ensure Your Website Is Facing Google’s Warning “This site may be hacked”?

There’s a possibility you won’t see the Google warning message “this site may be hacked” in your Google search results. Many times, business owners learn of the issue through customers emailing them.

So, if you’ve received an email or you’re doubting that your website may have been suffering from this warning message, then the easy way to confirm it is to:

Visit your website through another system or device.
Use incognito mode and open your website.
Check for an email notification from Google Search Console.
Confirm whether your site is blacklisted by checking through Google Safe Browsing.
Check for security warnings in Google Search Console.

The first three are quite straightforward to confirm whether your website is facing a “this site may be hacked” warning or not. If you don’t get any proof on whether your site is facing this Google warning message, we recommend following the other mentioned methods:

Confirm Whether Your Site Is Blacklisted by Checking Through Google Safe Browsing

Google safe browsing is one of the best ways to confirm whether your website is facing a warning message or not. Google safe browsing is a safe hack that confirms if your site is blacklisted.

However, it only shows whether your site is flagged or not. It doesn’t help in removing any malware or give an exact reason behind the problem.

Check for Security Warnings in Google Search Console

For this to work, your Google Search Console account needs to be set up accurately. Furthermore, you’ll also require notice from Google Search Console with the subject title “This site may be hacked.”

Assuming your Google Search Console account is set appropriately, and you’ve received a notification about the Google Warning “this site may be hacked,” then follow the steps below:

Log in to the Google Search Console and go to Security & Manual Actions and select Security Issues.
Now select and go to the infected pages and check the “Detected Issues.”.
Once you ensure that Google has issued a “this site may be hacked” warning message, then you’ll need to complete a few steps to remove it.

Wrapping Up

Website security is of utmost importance, and it should be implemented and taken care of before the site goes live. Also keep in mind that malware infection is the number one cause of getting the Google warning message “this site may be hacked.”

If your site shows this warning message, it’s recommended you go through Google Search Console and follow the above-mentioned steps and submit a request to remove the warning. If you’ve done everything properly, the warning will go away.

Whether your site is infected or not, security measures such as keeping your site updated, installing provided patches, and scanning your site for malware or vulnerabilities should be done anyways. And with those steps taken, you never have to worry about that pesky Google warning message again!

How to Remove “This Site May Be Hacked” Warning Message from Google