Adsense After A Hack Repair

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Adsense After A Hack Repair

austtr

7:24 am on Aug 7, 2016 (gmt 0)

Has anyone had trouble getting Adsense to show on a site after a hack has been repaired and the Google review approved? The hack (injected malware script into a template file) resulted in Google blocking the site for being an attack site.

However, there have not been any messages about the adsense account being suspended, and the adsense reporting says the site is free from any violations. I tried looking in Wayback to see if part of the hack was to divert adsense to another account but couldn’t get a date match.

The adsense blocks are implemented exactly the same as the pre-hack period, the source code matches exactly with known working ads, the same code is working fine on other sites … so there is no obvious reason that I can see why the ads won’t show.

I’d like to rule out any scenario arising from the hacking before looking elsewhere for the problem.

netmeg

3:32 pm on Aug 7, 2016 (gmt 0)

Did you try emailing them and telling them the hack was cleaned up?

super70s

8:17 pm on Aug 7, 2016 (gmt 0)

I had a hacked (Wordpress, no surprise) site a few months ago and my experience was Adsense came back pretty fast after I cleaned up the site and notified Google about it. Hopefully you have access to a cpanel and its Virus Checker to find out which pages of your site are infected. I never received anything directly from Adsense about the hack either, only from Google proper.

I did wind up completely dumping that WP site and using the same theme on a php based site though so I don't have to worry about that again.

austtr

12:12 am on Aug 8, 2016 (gmt 0)

@netmeg

Did you try emailing them and telling them the hack was cleaned up?

Google provide a page titled “Webmasters help for hacked sites” which outlines the procedure for repairing the hack. The last step is to “Request A Review” which was done, confirmed by Google as successful, and the block was lifted. I would assume that eliminates any need to try and email them to confirm what they already know.

Is there an email address where Adsense queries can be sent to Google?

@super70s

Adsense came back pretty fast after I cleaned up the site and notified Google about it

Are you referring to the “Request A Review” step mentioned above or did you use some other way to “notify Google about it”

@super70s

same theme on a php based site though so I don't have to worry about that again

I hope your trust is not misplaced. Joomla sites are PHP based and they are just as prone to hacking as any other CMS platform.

netmeg

12:22 pm on Aug 8, 2016 (gmt 0)

Google Search and Google AdSense are two different things and they don't talk. Just because you're cleaned up in search doesn't mean that AdSense knows (by a long shot) In order to email support, you need to be averaging $25/week in revenue - then you go to the Help while logged into your account and search for "contact AdSense" - if you are eligible for email support, it'll show up on the Support Options page.

austtr

10:56 pm on Aug 8, 2016 (gmt 0)

@netmeg... thanks for your input. Appreciate the info about contacting Adsense.

I posted this in the Google Adsense Forums and got a reply directing me to a tool called the Adsense Sandbox. Enter the URL into an input field and if you see typical ad examples, then Adsense is enabled. If the account is disabled you will not see any ads.

All the ad examples showed OK so it would seem that the account being disabled is not the problem.

super70s

1:34 am on Aug 9, 2016 (gmt 0)

Are you referring to the “Request A Review” step mentioned above or did you use some other way to "notify Google about it"

I used the "Request a Review" method, as I remember.

I hope your trust is not misplaced. Joomla sites are PHP based and they are just as prone to hacking as any other CMS platform.

As a matter of fact I had both a WP and a Joomla site at the time. I was never really sure which site the hackers used to plant their malware because as you say Joomla sites are also especially vulnerable.

But I got rid of the Joomla site as well. That was my first experience with a Joomla site and I *hated* working on that platform anyway. I even had to hire somone on freelancercom to make some simple tweaks because it seemed so user unfriendly.

austtr

10:59 pm on Aug 9, 2016 (gmt 0)

Just to close this out...

Four days after the site was unblocked, Adsense started appearing again.

This is pure speculation but I wonder if Adsense is kept on hold for a few days after a site is released to be sure it does not immediately relapse into a hacked state.