Google mistake or mine

aumz · 31 Oct 2017 at 22:47

Not sure where to ask this but will try here. When I google "taxi-team.co.uk" it does not take me to that website it links it to a Rugby Shirt seller same if I type " taxi team stockport" in the box at the side if I click on WEBSITE again it is taking me to the Rugby shirt seller.

Is this an issue with google or could it be down to the web hosting as it is on a shared platform.

AHarvey · 31 Oct 2017 at 23:12

I would imagine it's some sort of cache issue at your end as both work fine for me. I would clear cache and cookies, try a different browser or incognito mode.

aumz · 31 Oct 2017 at 23:35

Already tried that and used Safari, Firefox and Chrome getting the same results.

unwashed potato! · 1 Nov 2017 at 00:54

Perhaps a virus? I've seen them hijack Google search results with ads and redirect to different pages.

Mynight · 1 Nov 2017 at 01:30

OP isn't alone. Googling "taxi-team.co.uk" shows the correct URL but with a rugby shirt selling sites description. Clicking through goes to the shirt site not the taxi one. (iOS Safari)

Both sites are on separate IP/servers.

Is this a site you own?

Edit:I would have suggested that htacess had been changed but Aharvey not having the issue has left me a bit confused.

Edit2: The other sites on the same server as the taxi one aren't having the same issue. I'm leaning towards a rogue plugin or hacked Wordpress. If there's nothing in the htacess sort files by recently added and check the latest ones chances are you'll find a redirection script. If you don't own it just email them.

aumz · 1 Nov 2017 at 07:53

Hope it is not a hack of anykind as my knowledge is very limited on these matters. Checked the htaccess and does not look like any redirect

# Switch rewrite engine off in case this was installed under HostPay.
RewriteEngine Off

SetEnv DEFAULT_PHP_VERSION 7

DirectoryIndex index.cgi index.php

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Will check plugins and delete any that are not being used.

Dup · 1 Nov 2017 at 09:26

How very very odd. For me I see the Google result with the correct URL but the main link goes to imvip.co.uk and the sub links go to www.rugby-heaven.co.uk. I'm fairly certain after doing an image search that the first one is a scam site at the very least.

I hate Wordpress with a passion and had similar with a customer site a while ago, which was re-directing to other sites when referred from Instagram or Google etc but with more generic obvious scam advertising sites. I used the following article to help clean it up: https://blog.sucuri.net/2016/05/wordpress-redirect-hack-test0-default7.html

Also maybe check this article too: https://fixmywp.com/blog/detect-clean-wordpress-malware-redirect.php

Hawk Tuah · 1 Nov 2017 at 09:37

It's the same in Bing, so it can't be a google problem.

touch · 1 Nov 2017 at 09:47

Seems like there's a couple of different problems going on here.
The search results show all the pages of the rugby-heaven site with the taxi-team url:

google is smart enough to know if it has been redirected so even if the taxi-team site had redirected to the rugby-heaven site it wouldn't have attached those page titles and descriptions to your search results. This might have been caused by a misconfigured host if both sites are on the same server. Could also be DNS settings.

The google search results do direct to the correct page though. When I click on the homepage in the search results, it goes to the www.taxi-team.co.uk url but the response from the taxi-team site redirects it to the imvip.co.uk site.

aumz · 1 Nov 2017 at 10:05

I am leaning towards a wordpress problem here as I have lost the ability to ADD NEW THEMES and PLUGINS also a load of BLOG posts that I have never seen before.

Mynight · 1 Nov 2017 at 13:33

aumz said:
I am leaning towards a wordpress problem here as I have lost the ability to ADD NEW THEMES and PLUGINS also a load of BLOG posts that I have never seen before.

What's the chance that you have a clean backup of the site?

If you need a hand trust me I've not got any work on today and I'm a bit bored so could use an investigation

.

aumz · 1 Nov 2017 at 19:31

Mynight said:
What's the chance that you have a clean backup of the site?

If you need a hand trust me I've not got any work on today and I'm a bit bored so could use an investigation .

Hi not got any backup of it at all really but not much content on there, if you still fancy a looka round on it let me know and I can forward you a login.