I have a Google Alert set up to check on what's happening with our company name. For the last few weeks I'll get alerts with our name or name and description listed. A click takes you to a malicious site that immediately tries to get you to click on a virus check or starts to install code. I've had to shut down the computer to stop it. These are different site, not the same one all the time, and different phrases.

1) Will this hurt my Google rank or SEO? I've been on page 1 for my main keywords for years. Recently my PageRank dropped to a 3 from a 4, but I gather that was some sort of adjustment because it happened to similar sites at the same time and I saw some posts about it.

2) What do I do to stop this? It is obviously being done with purpose, not randomly.

Thanks much for any help you can give me.

Most likely, this won't affect your rankings, as it sounds like this is being done to create content on scraper sites for the purpose of luring traffic to the malicious content.

Would you be willing to PM me with some of the links? I would be curious to take a look at the sites, as well as seeing if there is anything that looks like it may refer back to your original site in a harmful way.

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Hey Wige:

Thanks for the reply. I guess it is surprising to me because we aren't a heavily visited site. I get 6000 - 7000 visits a month because we are really a niche market.

I'd be glad to either send you some of the links and get your input. It would be appreciated. Just tell me what I need to do. I don't use this board much...read the WebProNews.

If you click my name, beside the picture, you should get a pulldown menu. The second option will be "Send a private message". Enter a title and the links, and send it on over to me, as well as the URL of the page being scraped for comparison. I will take a look as soon as I can.

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off topic-
wige said=
If you click my name, beside the picture, you should get a pulldown menu.

i've been a visitor on here for years and i never knew that ! is that because a forum involving web developers assume that we should know ?

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I subscribe to several forums,both technical and social. Clicking on members name or pic is fairly standard,as is here,giving the same kind of pull down menu

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I climb high mountains,dive deep seas. I ride wild horses and fight enemies. When not doing all those things i sit quietly with a nice cup of tea.

I actually did not know about it either until one time I clicked expecting to go to the user's profile...

But yes, as emps said, it is fairly common on forums for posters' names to either link to their profiles or give a pulldown of common functions. Just a lot of users don't utilize these features often, and don't always realize that the functionality exists.

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Interestingly Average Security Blog

I just want to add that you have to be logged in to WPW to get that menu. I read the posts featured in the email almost daily, but I rarely need to log in.

I do not sell anything from my site but have google alerts to it and other related names. I have had a few of these fake virus scanning programs come up. the only way to stop them is to disconnect from the internet before doing anything else or clicking on anything. then force the opened window to close. delete all files in cache including all off-line content. a good program to use is called cc cleaner free download none spyware prog + any other trace remover program.
This spam program cannot affect your site as all it does is scrape from different sites to get search engine recognition to make people click on the link trying to get to the content they were looking for. it is a very great annoyance & I think would be difficult to remove if it was allowed to scan & access your computer,but if removed as explained before taking hold not a big problem to a computer literate person.

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Thanks for your help. I have been that route. It is scary because it's hard to close the program (especially if you are on a laptop and it won't power down). I have major concerns that someone who doesn't know better will click on it and will think it's connected to us. Do the hosts not shut down sites like these when they see what they are doing?