Why Is My Website Blacklisted?

If your Google traffic has dropped or your website no longer appears in Google searches, your website might have been blacklisted by Google.

But the question is: “Why is my website blacklisted?”

Your website is blacklisted because it has been infected with malware, hacked, linked from bad reputation sites, or is in copyright violation.

How do I get my website off the blacklist?

You can petition Google to have your website off the blacklist. But before you contact Google, you should find out why your website was blacklisted. Once your website is fully functional and free of malware, you can use Google Search Console to have your site removed from Google’s blacklist.

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Is your website infected with malware?

Make sure you clean your website and remove all malware from each page before you contact Google. Sometimes the easiest way to fix your website is to restore a previous backup.

If you have a backup from before your site was blacklisted, you should be able to restore your site. But, if you can’t use a backup, you need to remove the malware scripts, which can be time-consuming.

Additionally, you should make sure WordPress and all plugins have been updated. And remove all unused plugins. You can also research which plugins are vulnerable to malware and remove them.

If you’re comfortable editing your website’s files, you can sometimes manually remove corrupted files. Recovering your website requires rebuilding it from fresh files downloaded from WordPress.

And if you have experience working with databases, you can remove malware directly from your database via phpMyAdmin. But, you shouldn’t use this method if you are not a database expert.

Just be aware that manually removing malicious scripts or files can break your site. Even changing one line of code could take your site offline. And before you make any site updates or changes, perform a full backup (files and database).

If you’re unsure how to clean your website of malware, you can always contact us for help.

What happens if my domain is blacklisted?

If your domain is blacklisted, you can request a Google review.

But, before you ask Google to review your site, it’s critical to resolve the reasons for blacklisting.

After you request a Google review in the Google Search Console, Google will scan your site.

To request a site review, navigate to Security & Manual Actions in your Google Search Console account. Tap “Security issues” and select the Request Review button.

After you have submitted your request, there is nothing more for you to do. Wait for Google to review your site. Hopefully, Google will remove your website from the blacklist within a few days.

Once you have removed your site from the Google blacklist, make sure you never get blacklisted again. Use a service to monitor your site for malware. Keep your WordPress theme and plugins up to date. And remove any unused plugins. Use secure passwords and change them once a month.

Why has Google blacklisted my website?

If your website is ever blacklisted, you have no time to waste. The damage from getting your site blacklisted can be huge. For starters, your traffic will drop dramatically. But, if Google blacklisted your site, it can cause irreparable damage to your reputation. When Google blacklists your site, users will see a warning whenever they want to visit it. As a result, most people will stay away from your website.

Fortunately, you can monitor Google’s blacklist. And you can take steps to remove your site from it if you know what to do:

Use the Google Search Console to identify which URL is blacklisted.
Scan your site for malware.
Remove malicious code from every infected page. If available, you can use a recent backup or manually remove malware from your site.
Request a review using the Google Search Console.

Ask us if you have any questions about Google’s blacklist.

Why is my website blacklisted?

Your website is most likely blacklisted due to spam complaints. Blacklisting may or may not be your fault. But, if your website is blacklisted, you should act fast to recover the good reputation of your website.

Having a website blacklisted generally results from degrading the domain’s reputation. Most often, blacklisting is caused by sending emails that trigger spam filters. When email or SMTP servers report the email you spend as “spam-like,” your website may be added to various online blacklists.

If the IP address of the mail or web server is listed on one or multiple blacklists, you can take steps to improve the sender reputation of your domain name.

Is being blacklisted permanent?

Being blacklisted isn’t permanent. When you send an email, include an IP address or domain. And when your email is flagged as spam, your domain and IP address can be blacklisted.

Your emails may be forwarded to a spam folder or rejected by the recipient’s mail server.

Blacklisted! How long does it last?

Blacklisting can last up to a couple of weeks. Your IP address or domain may have been automatically added to a blacklist, and it will be removed automatically.

But on rare occasions, in case of high volumes of spam, domains can get banned for longer periods or even permanently.

How do you tell if your domain is blacklisted or not?

You can check a specific blacklist site or use a dedicated blacklist tool to tell if your domain is blacklisted.

I don’t recommend individual blacklist sites. It’s too time-consuming. You are better off using a website like MX Toolbox. It’s a free blacklist checker. You can enter your domain or IP address and get an instant update.

You can also check your metrics and start investigating if your open rates have dropped. And if you want, you can send test emails to check if your domain is blacklisted.

But, the easiest method is to use an email monitoring service. This type of service will automatically check blacklists and report to you if your domain is on a blacklist.

How do I remove my IP address from a blacklist?

Some blacklists have a self-service option. The self-service removal feature lets you take your IP address off the blacklist. But, you should only request blacklist removal after you have resolved the issues that got your IP address blacklisted.

But, most blacklists are time-based. In other words, your IP address will be removed after a certain amount of time. The removal is done automatically after one or two weeks. But your IP address will remain on blacklists if you are a repeat offender or sent a large amount of spam.

Malware and Blacklisting Your Website

As if running your business wasn’t hard enough, now here is something else that can keep you up at night. The name is malware and can hurt your business and reputation in several ways. Malware infects millions of websites around the world. Malware is malicious software installed on your website, often invisible. There are billions of malware attacks throughout the world. According to some estimates, malware used to steal credit information and other personal data costs the global economy $1 trillion dollars per year.

There are many ways malware can hurt your business and your reputation. Here are three:

Shady links – Some forms of malware will install links on your site to shady or illegal websites. Criminals that create and spread this kind of malware want to drive traffic from your site to theirs. You don’t want your customers to click on a link on your site to end up on an illegal website. If you have malware, your website could infect visitors’ computers or steal their credit card or personal data.

Blacklisted – Search engines monitor your website for malware. Once they detected malware, search engines such as Google will drop you from their index. Google maintains information on websites and web pages infected with malware. You don’t want your website on the suspicious or infected sites list. If your site is on the list, and users try to click through your site from the Google results page, a warning page will state that your site is unsafe to visit. If your customers see warnings about your site, they will stop using it. Once you have been blacklisted, it can take several days to be removed. Some websites are never removed from the blacklist.

Loss of Search Engine Rankings – When search engines detect malware on your website they will drop you from their index. The result is that your website will lose its rankings. The next time someone searches for your business, it will not show up among the results.

3 simple steps to fight malware:

Have your web designer or web developer frequently check your website for malware. Have them frequently update your WordPress, Drupal, or whatever website platform you are using. Updated websites are better equipped to fight malware.
You can check your website for malware any time by copying and pasting the following link. Of course, you need to replace yourdomain.com with your own domain:
https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=yourdomain.com
Use Chrome to browse your website to be notified of malware.