About this service
WordPress sites get hacked overnight. Not because WordPress is insecure — it isn't, when maintained — but because most installs run outdated plugins, weak admin passwords, and shared hosting where one compromised neighbour can affect everyone on the server.
What hacked WordPress actually looks like
Modern attacks are designed to stay hidden from you while exploiting your traffic. By the time you notice, the damage is already done.
- Hidden spam injection — thousands of pages added to your site overnight selling casino, porn, replica goods, payday loans, or counterfeit pharmacies. Often only visible to Googlebot, not to you when you log in
- Fake redirects — visitors clicking from Google search results get sent to scam sites; you see your normal site when you visit directly because the malware whitelists your IP
- SEO-spam backlinks — your site silently links out to thousands of low-quality external sites to boost the attacker's link network
- Cryptominers — your hosting CPU is hijacked to mine cryptocurrency, slowing your site and racking up hosting bills
- Credit-card skimmers — on WooCommerce stores, payment forms are silently modified to steal customer card details before forwarding the transaction normally
How this destroys your SEO and business
The financial damage rarely comes from the hack itself — it comes from Google's response.
- "This site may be hacked" warning appears in Google search results next to your business name
- De-indexing — your real pages get removed from search results, sometimes for weeks
- Ranking collapse — even after cleanup, recovery to previous positions takes 30-90 days
- Browser warnings — Chrome and Firefox display red "Deceptive site" interstitials that kill all traffic instantly
- Google Ads suspension — ad accounts attached to a hacked domain get paused immediately
- Email deliverability damage — your domain reputation falls, business emails start landing in spam
- Customer trust loss — repeat customers who saw the warning rarely return even after full cleanup
For a small business doing 50% of revenue through organic search, a typical hack means 30-60 days of lost income plus the cleanup cost.
What we deliver
After cleanup we typically harden the site with WordPress development (security headers, plugin audit, theme rebuild) and server configuration (firewall rules, isolation). For repeat-target sites we move them to a managed host as part of WordPress design refresh.
- Immediate cleanup — isolate the site, scan filesystem and database, remove infected files
- Vulnerability patch — close the specific entry point that allowed the breach
- Hardening — update core, plugins, themes; enforce strong credentials; install WAF
- Blacklist removal — Search Console reconsideration request and follow-up
- Ongoing monitoring — optional retainer for daily scans and alerts
Emergency response begins within 1-2 hours of receiving site credentials. Typical full cleanup takes 4-8 hours for standard infections.
Preventing re-infection
- Update everything weekly with staging test
- Strong unique passwords with 2FA on admin accounts
- Limit plugin count — under 15 is the sweet spot
- Install a proper WAF (Wordfence or Cloudflare)
- Use managed WordPress hosting rather than cheap shared hosting
We can set all of this up as part of the cleanup engagement.
Related services
This service is one piece of our full digital marketing services lineup. It works best alongside:
- WordPress development — fixes the vulnerabilities that let attackers in
- server configuration — hardens hosting against future intrusions
- WordPress design — rebuilds the site appearance when defacement happened
Not sure which combination fits? Get a free audit and we will recommend the smallest engagement that hits your goal.