14 DAY TRIAL // The past year was a difficult one for security as the number of hacked sites rose by 32% compared to the previous year, shows Google's State of Website Security Report for 2016.
"We've seen an increase in the number of hacked sites by approximately 32% in 2016 compared to 2015. We don't expect this trend to slow down. As hackers get more aggressive and more sites become outdated, hackers will continue to capitalize by infecting more sites," reads Google's blog post on the matter.
Nonetheless, Google says 84% of webmasters who apply for reconsideration are successful in cleaning their sites. On the other hand, a sadder number indicates that 61% of webmasters who were hacked never even receive a notification from Google that their site was infected because their sites weren't verified in Search Console. The company takes this opportunity to remind every webmaster to register for Search Console for this particular reason.
Help with the clean-up
Google is further trying to help webmasters by creating clean-up guides for sites affected by known hacks. In this way, not only will site admins have less work to do, but they'll also be able to make sure their sites are up and running in a shorter time period.
"We've noticed that sites often get affected in similar ways when hacked. By investigating the similarities, we were able to create clean up guides for specific known type of hack," the company writes, offering a few examples on how to clean up after a "cloaked keyword hack," or a "Japanese keywords hack."
The Mountain View giant insists, however, that prevention continues to be the best way to fight against security threats. Securing your site before an attack happens is always easier and better than dealing with the aftermath. As they say, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.