Hugo site marked by Google for Harmful content

support
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This is Semi-OT and I am posting it here to ask if anyone else in the Hugo Forum has been in a similar situation with a Hugo site. Any pointers will be appreciated.

Today I got an email by Google notifying me that a site I own contains a “Social Engineering” redirection link to a phishing site.

But this flagged URL does not exist on my domain. It throws a 404. How could Google find something that doesn’t exist is beyond me.

  • I’ve checked my DNS and everything seems fine.
  • I don’t have any redirections, except from http to https and from the naked domain to www.
  • There are no external assets. Everything is served from my domain.

Anyway I’ve requested a new review by Google in the Search Console. But they will get back to me in 3 days and the cherry on the cake is the fact that the site is currently demoted in the Search Engine Results…

Also I have notified Netlify because that is where the site is currently deployed (just in case one of their servers got compromised).

I admit that I am a bit at a loss here.

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Sounds juicy. Can you provide more specifics? Is possible it’s a 302 redirect hijack?

500 Kin says Netlify is compromised. :smiling_imp:

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What is 500 Kin?

It’s the same redirect link as the one in this message from the Webmasters Support Forum except for the domain (of course)
https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/webmasters/cBLU1PruR6w/oODs4wAxBwAJ

Anyway I am about to issue some CSP headers on this website.

But if Netlify is compromised…I’m in for lots of fun today. :tired_face:

4

Kinit is the app from Kik. Kin is the cryptocurrency.

As for the Webmaster link sorry but I cannot look at it as I do not have a Google account setup for Webmastering stuff anylonger (just a shell account for Play Store downloads I can’t get off Aurora or F-Droid).

Hope you’re able to figure it out. 500 Kin to you if it’s not Netlify.

5

What does a cryptocurrency app have to do with this?

What kind of authority does that app have to say whether Netlify is compromised?

@anon94969202 I am removing the links you posted. Please refrain from posting links to Cryptocurrencies and the like here. Consider this as a warning.

Actually I suspended you for the next 24 hours for these links. We do not accept Spam here.

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I’m not even going to comment.

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When I opened this topic it was in good faith. People here tend to be helpful -as I have been in the past I suppose- and this was an honest question for advice.

But it seems that I should be thinking twice before posting here these days.

By the way, there is no need for opening fake profiles @anon94969202 or if you bother then please use a VPN to mask your IP, we know it’s you and to paraphrase from your earlier private message to me, that’s not quite grown up of you.

Alexandros

PS. There are other moderators to moderate things around here. As the Italians say: Alla prossima.

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9

Just checked the Search Console and the issue was quietly resolved by Google.

They didn’t send me any email notifications about restoring the site (at least it wasn’t 3 days of having the site demoted).

Obviously this was a false positive.

In any case Google has a process webmasters must follow to have a website unflagged as dangerous and it’s detailed here: https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/security/hacked/request_review?visit_id=1-636675223533147090-1844834064&rd=1

I’m posting this link in case someone else faces the same problem in the future.

It does seem a bit abusive of Google though to penalize a site like that.

But anyway as someone pointed out there were problems with Google Cloud yesterday and that outage may be related.

Also thanks for the private messages. You know who you are and I appreciate it.

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