SEORockstars Hacked

DOH!

Guys, you still have your PHP errors/warnings printing enabled! Turn that off, it gives out too much info, especially now that the site is in some disrepair! I’ve found that the best way to prevent defacing accidents like that is to chmod all the important files such as index.php, and the template files that the bad guys are after. It’s kinda PITA to update (you have to change permissions before your upload new ones and then change them back), but it would at least keep your homepage clean.

As a SEO Rockstar you might be interested to keep an eye on the idea that this sort of defacing is REALLY bad for your SE rankings if the bot comes around and sees the defaced homepage. It basically means a complete change of site’s theme and I think that Google assumes that the site has just changed hands and the new owner is trying to milk the old links and so it grossly demotes the pages as well as the links (including internal) from the site.

I actually had a 7 y.o. well established site totally sink to the bottom after a homepage defacing incident where they put some stupid political pitch on it and the googlebot was just around at a bad time to catch it. Still not recovered after couple of months.

Good luck with cleaning up the mess. If Greg needs help down there, let me know. I had to clean after quite a few of those so I may be able to help.