Monday, July 22, 2019

Need some advice: switched to a new server, left some subdomains pointing to old server IP (not smart)

As the title reads, when I switched to new server I lazily left some old / unused subdomains pointed to the old server IP. This was a real bonehead move, but I wanted to make this post to hopefully serve as a PSA to maybe save a few people down the road. I also have a few questions about best practices for my next steps to cover my ass.

I was checking through my Google search console this morning and I have dozens of clicks for new pages for very specific things such as Toyota manuals, calculus books, etc. I looked up the pages and they are all basically the same, but with links to "Download now."

I didn't click download now, but I imagine it is a quick little link for some malware.

I IMMEDIATELY shut off all subdomains pointing to old server, so all those pages are dead now, but they are showing at the top of google results still.

A few questions:

  1. has anyone experienced this before? I am not the only one these guys are targeting, when I search for the specific manuals, the top 5-10 results are subdomains of other companies linking to exact same thing
  2. how did they even do this? was it just some spammers that were watching my server IP and waiting for this specific opportunity? The subdomain they used was my server's TLDN.
  3. What else should I do? I know I took the most important step of getting it offline so no one can get malware from my subdomain (hopefully no one did earlier). Not sure if I should report this to Google, etc?

Thanks!

submitted by /u/bluebrew2
[link] [comments]

from Search Engine Optimization: The Latest SEO News https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/cgebfs/need_some_advice_switched_to_a_new_server_left/>

No comments:

Post a Comment