We Fixed a Website that had a Serious Problem

Yay! We’re so happy. We fixed a website that had a difficult problem to remedy. It took patience and thinking out of the box to solve this problem, but we did it.

There’s often a serious problem with websites that owners overlook. This problem can drive away traffic before they even get to your site. It can strike fear in the hearts of your potential customers, and tarnish your brand unfairly. It can make your website look like a dangerous place to visit, and make new potential visitors never want to come back.

What is it? What can turn a website into a monster? What did we do to fix the website and make it all right again?

I couldn’t think of a good headline for this post, but I was so excited about this and couldn’t explain it succinctly enough. This was a serious website problem for our client for a few years that occurred before we inherited the site.  Now it’s managed between only us and our client. Previously we were only providing SEO consulting services, but we got tired of having technical limitations hinder the results we knew we could get. Now things are running very smooth. And the numbers? They just keep improving.

Jason PelishMassive Impressionshttp://www.massiveimpressions.com–http://www.massiveimpressions.com

What was it? What problem was affecting this website and making it so horrible for business?

  Evil Malware!

When some visitors were coming to the website they were being shown a warning by the anti-virus software they were using. This warning was displayed for users of TrendMicro’s antivirus and internet security products. It warned visitors that the site contained malware, malicious code. The warning told visitors to proceed at their own risk.

This was causing potential visitors to leave before they ever loaded the webpage.  This was affecting all visitors regardless of where they came from, banner ads, search engines and even social media marketing.

Our client asked us to remedy the problem, so we did.

• First and foremost we made sure no malware was being served from the site. This involved a security review of all the site’s static assets and all of the dynamic content served through the database.
• Second we contacted the anti-virus company repeatedly, requesting that the site be de-listed as a potentially risky site. This was the tricky part because each anti-virus company has its own protocol for receiving reports of malware laden sites, and their own protocols for removing false-positive reports. TrendMicro has an ear to the ground, you just have to know how to get that ear to listen. That involved actually purchasing the anti-virus software and acting as a user/realtime reviewer ourselves.
• Third, we waited between attempts to get it delisted. We didn’t want to flood our requests, or waste inordinate amounts of time repeating requests in an ineffective manner.

At the end of the process, the warning was removed. The client’s site was no longer listed as potentially dangerous for visitors. We’re happy. The client is happy. Best of all, potential customers are no longer being scared away.