Japanese Keyword Hack can kill your SEO efforts and portray your site as untrustworthy and potentially malicious. Learn how to fight it.

WordPress is a great tool for creating an attractive, user-friendly, and easy-to-manage website. Its possibilities are endless: it handles blogs, business sites, online stores, and any other type of site. Thanks to WordPress’s high customization capabilities, you can download themes and plugins to make your site yours. Just remember to check how to scan a file for viruses before downloading and installing anything from the web.

WordPress is so popular that about 43% of all pages are powered by it. While the tool is impressive, web developers need to take care of some things themselves. WP’s core is secure, but the more complex the site, the more risks it faces daily. Japan Keyword Hack is one of them.

What Is The Japanese Keyword Hack?

The Japanese Keyword Hack, or Japanese SEO Spam, is an attack where the hacker injects the website with pages containing auto-generated Japanese text. The web pages often have links to other websites and are used to boost their rankings.

But what does the attack look like from the third-person perspective? If a page gets injected with these spammy sites, consumers Googling the actual page might see the Japanese sites in their search results. If they know the page has been attacked, they won’t trust it. If they’re unaware of the attack, they’ll avoid it because the search results don’t match their needs.

The easiest way to find out if your site has fallen victim to the Japanese SEO Hack is to Google search for its main URL with the word “Japan” added. An example search query might look like this:

site:[the site’s URL] japan

If the search results are in Japanese and look nothing like your site, it’s most likely that the site has been hacked.

Most Common Reasons For The Japanese Keyword Hack

• Untrustworthy plugins. Plenty of WordPress plugins are available for download, but not all are safe. It’s always worth checking user reviews and whether the developer offers technical support. Outdated plugins that contain bugs or aren’t secure open your site to hackers.
• Outdated CMS. Developers of WordPress and other CMSs regularly update their products not only to add new features but – most importantly – to address any security vulnerabilities that may appear. An old version of a CMS can lead to an attack when hackers discover and exploit loopholes in the software.
• File permissions misconfiguration. The term “file permissions” refers to who can read, write, and execute a file. It’s crucial to set them up correctly and prevent unauthorized users from writing and executing files they shouldn’t have access to.

Removing The Japanese SEO Hack

Dealing with the hack is bothersome, but it is possible:

1. Back up all your files before you do anything.
2. Go to Google Search Console and see if any unwanted, newly added accounts that might change your site’s settings are there. If so – remove them.
3. Check the .htaccess files. These are often used to generate verification tokens and trick search engines into redirecting users to malicious sites. If you’re unsure what these files should look like, replace them with “fresh,” default ones. If your site uses multiple .htaccess files, you need to find and replace them all.
4. The last and most time-consuming step is checking the files for malicious code, which is challenging and requires some web development and programming knowledge.
5. After checking everything, it’s also a good idea to reinstall all core modules and plugins for good measure.

How To Prevent The Japanese Keyword Hack

• Perform regular updates. If your CMS has a new version – don’t wait to update your site. The same goes for plugins. Updates include critical security patches that fix vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit.
• Install WordPress security plugins. If you use WordPress, you have tons of options to choose from to improve security. There are plugins for scanning files, improving performance, and more. Most of them have free and paid plans with more advanced features.
• Use trustworthy plugins. Only use trusted sources if you want to download third-party plugins for your site. Check user reviews, and don’t install modules that seem buggy, sloppy, or generally shady.
• Take care of your passwords. If hackers somehow gain access to your password, and you use the same one everywhere, all your accounts could be compromised. Always use strong and unique passwords.

  More Resources:

  • SEO Tips To Make A Website Rank High On Google
  • Is Your SEO Working? 6 Ways To Know
  • Is SEO Crucial For Business Growth