WordPress redirect hack is one of the frequently known hacking techniques.
If you want to fix your WordPress redirect hack malware or prevent yourself from this type of WordPress hack, then this blog post is for you.
This blog post explains how as a beginner you can prevent yourself from WordPress redirect hack and avoid malicious codes to get Google spam.
Let’s start from the basics.
What is the WordPress redirect hack?
WordPress redirect hack makes your site visitors redirect to other websites automatically. If you are trying to access your website URLs, the malware automatically sends you to some other websites.
These links are mostly redirected to any malicious or phishing websites. These websites can infect your visitor’s devices.
When visitors click your website links from the search engines, then it will be automatically redirected.
How did this Malicious WordPress redirect hack Happen?
This WordPress redirect happens, because the hackers inject the malicious codes on your WordPress website files.
The malicious injected codes will automatically start to redirect your web pages to some other websites.
Reason for WordPress redirect happening?
The hackers will have some benefits from injecting malicious codes into your WordPress websites.
- Stealing your traffic is an important motive to hackers. They need to send traffic to their particular websites.
- Your SEO ranking will be affected and also blacklisted.
- Thousands of backlinks are created on your website to another site, which improves spam websites SEO.
How to find the WordPress redirect hack?
If you aren’t sure, your website is hacked or not. Whenever hacking happens, the Google Search Console is your best friend.
Using these methods below, you can easily find whether your website is hacked or not. The below conditions are symptoms of a hacked website.
- Thousands of spam links are indexed on your Google search console if the website is hacked. You will see many unwanted links indexed on the search console with spam names.
- Google will mark your website as hacked, on the search engine results page. On search engines, Google will notify your visitors that your site may be hacked.
Google says that users should avoid entering websites that are suspected to be hacked. If your website is flagged as “This site may be hacked”, then you should clean up your website to remove this.
3. On your search console navigate to the security issues section. It also shows you errors. If there are no security issues, then it will give you “No issues Detected”.
4. Sudden decrease in website traffic and SEO ranking. If you notice sudden traffic on your site, then it is also a reason. It is because Google may blacklist your site.
5. Click your links from search engines, then it will automatically redirect links to some other websites.
6. Check if any new user with an unknown name is added to your Google search console and WordPress dashboard. These malicious codes automatically create new users with admin permission on your website.
These are the major ways to confirm your website is hacked. Sometimes, the search engines take time to find your hack or it also may go unnoticed by search engines. It shows different content for search engines and different content for human users. So use many of these techniques to find hacks, if you are not sure about them.
If you found this WordPress redirect malware is present in your website. Then it’s time to fix your WordPress malware.
How to fix WordPress redirect hack and malware?
There are two methods to clean your hacked WordPress site.
- Manually cleaning malware
- Using Malware cleaning tool
To fix your WordPress redirect hack, using the malware cleaning tool is the best choice.
If you are a coding and technical expert, then you can also clean it manually or hire a malware removal expert. But hiring experts will cost more and also time-consuming.
And also manual cleaning is not suggested every time.
Manually removing the WordPress redirect malware is not suitable for beginners and also it could corrupt your complete site. So using the best hack repair tool is important.
Follow these process to fix your hacked WordPress site
Initially, you need to scan your website to find and confirm your hack. Use any free malware scanner like Sucuri or Malcare.
If it finds any malware or redirects, then it shows you errors. Sometimes, a normal scanner doesn’t find the malicious hacks. So you need to use the more intense server-side scanning.
Easily signup for the Malcare. After signing up, you can easily install the Malcare security plugin.
(Check how to install a WordPress plugin)
Once you have installed and activated the Malcare security plugin, then run the malware scanner.
It shows your hacked and security status.
Then, click the clean button. It will completely clean your website in quick minutes.
It is the best way to clean your website. But for cleaning your website, you need to get Malcare’s premium plans. For $99 per year, you will get complete protection of your website.
Their plans come up with,
- Automatic daily malware scan
- Smart website firewall
- Login protection and website hardening
- Better website management and personalized support
It is the only best way to clean your malware quickly. After cleaning your malware, you can do hardening for your website for better security.
Their advanced firewall rules and security features will prevent your site from malware attacks.
Other Methods to fix WordPress redirect hacks
You can also manually clean the malware. But it needs better technical skills and is more time-consuming.
I will not suggest a manual cleaning method for beginners. Some plugins like Sucuri and Wordfence provide you malware cleaning from their experts.
But it takes time to clean your website. WordFence charges a hefty amount for cleaning your website once. Next time cleaning, you have to pay again a big amount.
But on Malcare, with $99 you will get one of unlimited malware scanning and removal for one year.
How to Prevent website from WordPress redirect hacks
Use better WordPress security plugins like Malcare, Sucuri, and Wordfence to protect your site.
These Security plugins come with better login protection and hardening options to protect your site.
If your site is hacked, then don’t worry. Just use the Malcare plugin to clean it automatically.
How to protect your WordPress Website for Future Hacks?
Every website needs better security. So following some better security will prevent you from getting hacked. Having some prevention techniques doesn’t mean that you will not get hacked. But you have very little probability to get hacked.
If you are a beginner and want some better prevention methods to avoid hacks like WordPress redirects, then follow these techniques.
- Always keep your themes and plugins updated. Do not download themes and plugins from untrusted sources. Only get it from official websites.
- Have one important WordPress security plugin. Having multiple security plugins will affect your WordPress site performance.
- Use strong passwords and different usernames. Login security is an important area to focus on. Use two-factor authentication.
- Use password attempt limit and IP lockout, when the login attempt is exceeded. You can also change your login URL.
- Don’t give a higher level of access to all your users. Limit your users with fewer permissions.
You can also check complete WordPress security to highly power up your site with maximum productivity.
If you want a single plugin with better hardening and easy malware cleaning, then Malcare is the best to do it.
Choose the best hosting providers like WPX, that give complete malware removal from their experts for free.
Use backup plugins like UpdraftPlus to have regular backups of your website. So, if anything goes wrong, you can easily backup your website for previous versions.
So backup is also one of the important protection techniques.
Final Things on WordPress redirect hacking
WordPress redirect malware is a common type of hacking on WordPress. If your site is also affected by this type of hacking, just follow and use the above tools to easily clean the malware.
I hope this helps to prevent and fix the WordPress redirect hack on your website. If you find it useful, kindly share it.
If you still have any suggestions in recovering from the WordPress redirect hacks, then comment below.
