Hello @bijnanobijnani,
Let’s address your concerns step by step.
1. Are These URLs Concerning?
While the URLs you mentioned are no longer active on your site, their presence in Google Search Console (GSC) results is primarily an indexing issue rather than a current security threat. But they may still affect your site’s SEO and could lead to confusion for users.
2. How to Handle the Old URLs in Google Search Console
To prevent Google from continuing to index these old, invalid URLs, you can:
- Request URL Removal: Use the “Remove URLs” tool in Google Search Console to request the removal of these specific URLs. This will temporarily hide them from search results.
- Submit a Clean Sitemap: Make sure to submit a clean sitemap that reflects only the valid URLs on your website.
- Add 410 (Gone) Status for the Old URLs: You can configure your server to return a
410 Gone status for these URLs, indicating to search engines that the URLs no longer exist and should be removed from the index.
- Check for Malware or Hacked Content Warning in GSC: If Google detects any remaining signs of malware, you may still see warnings. Make sure to follow Google’s recommendations to resolve these warnings.
3. How to Tackle These Issues in the Future?
Fallow security best practices recommended by WordPress
4. How to check whether any Plugins is causing this? To check if a plugin is causing issues:
- Temporarily deactivate all plugins.
- Reactivate them one by one, checking your site after each activation.
- If the issue reappears, the last activated plugin is likely the culprit.
- Always use plugins from reputable sources and keep them updated.
Let me know if this was helpful!
Yes, the URLs can interfere with the indexing of your site. They don’t prevent it, but they don’t do any good.
You have 2 options to fix this:
- You could ask Google to exclude these URLs. Google offers its own tool for this: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9689846?hl=en – but this is primarily intended for other cases.
- URLs with HTTP status 200 are currently being accessed. This means that Google sees them as normal pages. You should set up a redirect for these URLs using HTTP status 410 or 404. 410 means “gone”, 404 means “non-existent”. Google would take both into account, although I consider 410 to be cleaner in this case. You won’t be able to set up the necessary redirects in WordPress itself. You may be able to achieve this with the redirection plugin (possibly with regular expressions). Otherwise, you would have to set this up on the hosting itself.
Also, if you don’t want Google to keep trying to index those URLs, don’t paste them in a public support forums, where Google could try to index them. 😉
Thank you very much to all for explaining me the correct ways to deal with these problems. I will dio the needful and see if it resolves.
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. Reason: hack URLs removed
