On 14, Oct 2016 | InBlog, Web Design , Web Design in Cumbria ,Web Services | Bystephen little
Earlier this week i received an email from the Google Search Console Team informing me about a website that contained hacked content.
The site was a WordPress site i had developed for a client a couple of years ago, the reason i received the email was that it was still linked to my Google Search Console, previously known as Webmaster Tools.
It turns out that the site had not had any security updates performed in over a year. The client did not have a support and maintenance contract with myself and was never confident enough in himself to do it.
When i checked the site i found that the problem was a WordPress plugin, used by over 90,000 WordPress website, which was out of date. I asked the site owner if they would like me to fix the problem, and informed them this may be a big job and would be chargeable, they agreed.
To remove all of the hacked content and dubious links on the site, perform all the security updates and test took a considerable time, and the site owner is left with a hefty bill after their website being offline for nearly three days.
If they’d had a support and maintenance contract all of this would have been avoided.
They have now taken out a support and maintenance contract for the next year.
The website, and website owner have remained anonymous in the article to avoid any embarrassment, But the article was written with their consent