How to remove a This site may be hacked warning: cleaning a compromised website and requesting a Google review

How to Remove a ‘This Site May Be Hacked’ Warning in Google

Google removes a 'This site may be hacked' warning only after three things happen. The malicious content is gone, the backdoors and entry point are closed, and you pass a review in Google Search Console. Cleanup usually takes hours to a few days, and the review adds a few days to several weeks. Doing things in the right order determines how long your traffic stays down.

The short answer

  • Google clears the 'This site may be hacked' warning only after you remove the infection and its backdoors, fix the entry point, and pass a review requested in Search Console.
  • Security issues and a 'Hacked content' manual action are separate reviews; file both if both appear.
  • Malware reviews typically take a few days, spam-hack reviews can take several weeks, and rankings recover over weeks to months.
  • Most rejections come from reinfection, cloaked spam you never saw, or blocking Googlebot during the review.

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Japanese keyword hack illustration: a website showing a clean face to visitors and hidden spam pages to search crawlers

Japanese Keyword Hack: Spot It, Clean It, Purge It From Google

If Google shows Japanese titles and thousands of Japanese pages under your domain, your site has been hit by the Japanese keyword hack, not a translation glitch. A hidden script is generating those pages for search engines only, and they will keep coming back until you remove the code and the backdoor behind it.

The short answer

  • Japanese pages in Google under your domain almost always mean the Japanese keyword hack: a server-side script generating cloaked spam for crawlers.
  • Deleting the visible pages does nothing. Remove the generator, the backdoor and the stolen credentials first, or the spam returns within hours.
  • Don't block spam URLs in robots.txt. Let Googlebot see 404 or 410 Gone, then use Search Console Removals as a temporary stopgap.
  • File a reconsideration request only if Search Console shows a manual action, and only after the site is verifiably clean.

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