This section describes a case in which a large number of HTML files are stored in a folder with a random name without permission, which is a type of malware (server tampering) that has been detected very frequently in recent years, and these files are then caught by search engines.
What kind of malware?
This malware creates a folder with a random name (or a name such as fox-404) in the server, and generates a large number of HTML files with hyphenated keyword file names in it.
Examples of file names
animation-using-python.php garlic-sherbet-strain-leafly.php
The file extension may also be HTML.
animation-using-python.html garlic-sherbet-strain-leafly.html woocommerce-nft-plugin.html
This HTML file contains a large amount of meaningless English text, and the bottom part of the file is
<a href=http://.... /wp-content/uploads/2020/12/prgaojwhb/woocommerce-nft-plugin.html>96rs</a>
A large number of links have been inserted, such as
This malware features
This malware further modifies the sitemap to hook search engines with HTML files like the one above.
Hence, when searching for your site name, a large number of pages that you do not remember producing will be trapped.
In addition, the large number of link strings at the bottom of the page may be used to increase the search engine ratings of external sites.
This type of tampering is called an SEO hack.
What if there are a large number of HTML files on the server that I don’t remember producing?
1 Back up your site and perform malware scanning and removal.
Please use the [ Free] WordPress:Malware Scan & Security Plug-in [Malware and Virus Detection and Removal].
You may also use FTP software to delete the entire folder containing the large amount of malicious HTML.
2 Site Security Measures
Reference page
5 Free WordPress Security Measures
3 Incorrect pages registered in search engines
Once a fraudulent page is registered with a search engine, there is basically no way for the site operator to immediately remove it from the search results.
Once the search engine crawls your site and confirms that the page is no longer there, it will be automatically removed from the search engine results. Generally, this can take up to a month.
It may be possible to speed up the process somewhat by deleting the sitemap from the search console and then re-registering the sitemap for the cleaned up site.
