Sometimes a website shows links the owner never added, like gambling links. That often means someone broke in. Customers who see them may stop trusting you. Act today: tell the person who runs your site, clean it, and change every password.
Joseph runs a bakery. His website was made three years ago. Nobody had touched it since.
A regular customer sent him a message. "Your website has betting links at the bottom. Is that you?" Joseph opened it. He had never seen those links before.
This is an example, with a made up name and business.
Fix it yourself
- Look at your whole page. Open your website on your phone and on a computer. Scroll to the very bottom. Look for links, words or pages you did not add.
- Tell the person who runs your website today. Say what you found and where. Ask them to remove the links.
- Change every password. That means your website login, your hosting login and the email linked to them. Use new, strong passwords. Do not reuse old ones.
- Remove old logins. Ask your web person to delete any accounts nobody uses any more.
- Update the site. Ask them to update the website software and any add ons. Old software is a common way in.
- If it cannot be cleaned quickly, ask them to take the site offline for now. A page with bad links can hurt trust more than no page.
- Check again in a week. Open the site on your phone. Make sure the links have not come back.
Never send your passwords to anyone who calls or messages you about this. Not even to us.
Common questions
Pulse gave my website a different first fix. What does it mean?
Pulse reads your website and picks one thing to fix first. It could be a missing page for your area. It could be a site that did not open. See what to do when your website does not open.
I do not know who made my website. What now?
Look for an old bill or email about the website or its hosting. The company you pay each year can help you get back in.
Will cleaning the site fix how I show up on Google?
Nobody can promise that. But it removes something that can make customers stop trusting you.