Amit Tiwari's amittiwari.net site hacked!, True Case Study
Amit Tiwari's amittiwari.net site hacked! Find out how, why, and what you can learn from it in the full real case study.
Amit Tiwari's amittiwari.net site hacked! Find out how, why, and what you can learn from it in the full real case study.
Hello Friends!
Today, I have brought a story that will shock you as a website owner, blogger, or digital marketer. Talking is happening, GeeksforGeeks Key – A website that every tech student, programmer, and coding lover knows. But it happened that one day, Google visited this website with 75 million traffic from search only. Google with his magic Wand “gili gili Chhoomantar” did it.
On April 2, a post came from the official Twitter handle of GeeksforGeeks – “Our site is not visible in Google search.”
The tone was as if a non-SEO guy was asking for help from the audience. But it came to light in the comments that this was not a trivial matter – De-index entire website It was done.
Even if you search “GeeksforGeeks”, the homepage does not come up. Now imagine, such a big brand website had to run Google Ads for its own name!
There was no Penalty Season going on at this time, nor was there any big Google update that was killing everyone. Yet GeeksforGeeks was targeted.
And this isn't the first time Google has dealt a blow to big sites. But this time the matter was something special.
GeeksforGeeks has been popular since 2015, but the site started in 2009.
Three programmers – Karthik, Dev, and Kelvin together created it to help students.
Not revenue, the pure intention was to teach others.
In 2010, Sandeep Jain and Gautam became its owners. Today only Sandeep ji operates it, and Gautam works in America's Oracle company.
From 2010 to 2020, the IT sector in India was booming, and the internet was becoming cheaper. Traffic to GeeksforGeeks continued to grow.
Just a slight traffic slowdown in 2020 and 2023, but then in 2024, GeeksforGeeks' three-year growth covered in one year.
But why?
Because a smart mind said, “The audience is at saturation, now give them a new type of content.”
GeeksforGeeks started from here, and Traffic Hunt in the other direction.
These pages started appearing on the site:
Now tell me, on Tech Educational Site, Vegetable names and birthday wishes?
GeeksforGeeks put all this up just because Google was ranking them.
Google was ranking, and GeeksforGeeks was publishing.
GeeksforGeeks' mistake wasn't just the content type, there were also fundamental flaws in their SEO structuring:
It is said, “Where the sun could not reach, the poet could” – but where even the poet could not reach, a writer from GeeksforGeeks had reached.
Now listen carefully! D-Indexing by GeeksforGeeks was no accident. This was a classic case where Site Reputation Abuse put the site directly on Google's radar.
GeeksforGeeks on its pages forgot to add a nofollow tag।
They only use nofollow, which is fine from a security point of view, but ineffective from an SEO point of view.
There was no hint given to Google that it should ignore those external links.
NoReferrer ≠ NoFollow
This difference matters a lot in SEO!
Now this was the thing that made the game worse – Backlinks were being sold on GeeksforGeeks.
Even though, may not have bought the link from there, many people have Confirmed this with data That linking pattern seemed paid.
And boy, it doesn't take much time for Google to smell such patterns!
When Google detects unnatural linking on a site, it can take down the entire website – and this is what happened.
Now listen to the biggest issue – what was the real identity of GeeksforGeeks?
Programming Tutorials, Coding Help, Placements, DSA, C++, Java…
But then they reached Valentine Week, Movie Downloading Sites, and the Most Beautiful Women.
Google saw –
“Brother, what is going on? This is an attempt to game our system.”
And then Boom – The entire site was excluded from the index.
Even if you have 75 million visitors, if you break Google's guidelines, then the penalty is certain.
A very valid point –
If Google is so smart, it should understand that
“These pages are outside of that site's expertise – so why rank them?”
I also believe the same – those pages could have been de-indexed instead of just killing the site.
Perhaps the GeeksforGeeks team might have thought –
“Brother, news sites also write on every topic, who penalizes them? So why not us?”
But GeeksforGeeks forgot that:
The core identity of news sites is “Variety”.
The identity of GeeksforGeeks is “Tech Learning,” and if you deviate from that, you are out of scope.
GeeksforGeeks took action after the penalty.
They removed the pages that made the mistake with a 410 status code.
SEO professionals know that giving 410 is a stronger signal.
It looks like this time, GeeksforGeeks has hired an external consultant – that too, one who is an expert in pulling hair out!
Some URLs are still in the index, but GeeksforGeeks adds them to a specific subdomain
Hello Friends!
Today, I have brought a story that will shock you as a website owner, blogger, or digital marketer. Talking is happening, GeeksforGeeks Key – A website that every tech student, programmer, and coding lover knows. But it happened that one day, Google visited this website with 75 million traffic from search only. Google with his magic Wand “gili gili Chhoomantar” did it.
On April 2, a post came from the official Twitter handle of GeeksforGeeks – “Our site is not visible in Google search.”
The tone was as if a non-SEO guy was asking for help from the audience. But it came to light in the comments that this was not a trivial matter – De-index entire website It was done.
Even if you search “GeeksforGeeks”, the homepage does not come up. Now imagine, such a big brand website had to run Google Ads for its own name!
There was no Penalty Season going on at this time, nor was there any big Google update that was killing everyone. Yet GeeksforGeeks was targeted.
And this isn't the first time Google has dealt a blow to big sites. But this time the matter was something special.
GeeksforGeeks has been popular since 2015, but the site started in 2009.
Three programmers – Karthik, Dev, and Kelvin together created it to help students.
Not revenue, the pure intention was to teach others.
In 2010, Sandeep Jain and Gautam become its owners. Today only Sandeep ji operates it, and Gautam works in America's Oracle company.
From 2010 to 2020, the IT sector in India was booming, and the internet was becoming cheaper. Traffic to GeeksforGeeks continued to grow.
Just a slight traffic slowdown in 2020 and 2023, but then in 2024, GeeksforGeeks' three-year growth covered in one year.
But why?
Because a smart mind said, “The audience is at saturation, now give them a new type of content.”
GeeksforGeeks started from here, and Traffic Hunt in the other direction.
These pages started appearing on the site:
Now tell me, on Tech Educational Site, Vegetable names and birthday wishes?
GeeksforGeeks put all this up just because Google was ranking them.
Google was ranking, and GeeksforGeeks was publishing.
GeeksforGeeks' mistake wasn't just the content type, there were also fundamental flaws in their SEO structuring:
It is said, “Where the sun could not reach, the poet could” – but where even the poet could not reach, a writer from GeeksforGeeks had reached.
Now listen carefully! D-Indexing by GeeksforGeeks was no accident. This was a classic case where Site Reputation Abuse put the site directly on Google's radar.
GeeksforGeeks on its pages forgot to add a nofollow tag।
They only use nofollow, which is fine from a security point of view, but ineffective from an SEO point of view.
There was no hint given to Google that it should ignore those external links.
NoReferrer ≠ NoFollow
This difference matters a lot in SEO!
Now listen to the biggest issue – what was the real identity of GeeksforGeeks?
Programming Tutorials, Coding Help, Placements, DSA, C++, Java…
But then they reached Valentine Week, Movie Downloading Sites, and the Most Beautiful Women.
Google saw –
“Brother, what is going on? This is an attempt to game our system.”
And then Boom – The entire site was excluded from the index.
Even if you have 75 million visitors, if you break Google's guidelines, then the penalty is certain.
Perhaps the GeeksforGeeks team might have thought –
“Brother, news sites also write on every topic, who penalizes them? So why not us?”
But GeeksforGeeks forgot that:
The core identity of news sites is “Variety”.
The identity of GeeksforGeeks is “Tech Learning,” and if you deviate from that, you are out of scope.
GeeksforGeeks took action after the penalty.
They removed the pages that made the mistake with a 410 status code.
SEO professionals know that giving 410 is a stronger signal.
It looks like this time, GeeksforGeeks has hired an external consultant – that too, one who is an expert in pulling hair out!
Some URLs are still in the index, but GeeksforGeeks adds them to a specific subdomain, but
Giving 410 after 301 redirect.
Whatever it may be, this treatment is risky.
Google has forgiven GeeksforGeeks for now, probably because the other tutorials are valuable.
But if the same trick is used again, then no recovery, only a ban.
When you abuse site reputation, it is not just the brand that suffers -
It also happens to users who are deprived of useful content.
My advice to people looking for gigs is:
If you also like GeeksforGeeks, on your website or blog. Generic Trending Topics Looking to garner traffic from –
So please be careful.
SEO is a long-term game; if you think of taking shortcuts, Google will exclude you from the shortcut.
, but
Giving 410 after 301 redirect.
Whatever it may be, this treatment is risky.
Google has forgiven GeeksforGeeks for now, probably because the other tutorials are valuable.
But if the same trick is used again, then no recovery, only a ban.
When you abuse site reputation, it is not just the brand that suffers -
It also happens to users who are deprived of useful content.
My advice to people looking for gigs is:
If you also like GeeksforGeeks, on your website or blog. Generic Trending Topics Looking to garner traffic from –
So please be careful.
SEO is a long-term game; if you think of taking shortcuts, Google will exclude you from the shortcut.
GeeksforGeeks was deindexed due to site reputation abuse, unnatural backlinks, and publishing out-of-niche content that violated Google's content policies.
Site reputation abuse occurs when a website publishes content outside its area of expertise to manipulate search engine rankings, often to attract traffic using low-quality or unrelated topics.
A 404 status code means the page is not found and may have never existed. A 410 status code means the page previously existed but has been permanently removed. Google treats 410 as a stronger signal to deindex content.
Yes, selling backlinks is considered a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can result in penalties or deindexing of the site.
To recover from a penalty, remove or update harmful content, disavow bad backlinks, follow SEO best practices, and submit a reconsideration request if applicable. In GeeksforGeeks' case, they removed problematic pages using 410 status codes.
No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves
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