Unhacking a Website Used for Black Hat SEO

I’ve just unhacked a website which was hacked for black hat SEO purposes. By black hat, I mean search engine optimization which uses less than savory tactics. Dishonest and illegal tactics. How exciting is that!

The hackers hacked into my client’s website to write very badly written blog posts on my unsuspecting client’s blog.

My client noticed the posts and called me, probably too late at night, probably while I was on vacation. “There are essay writing posts on my site,” he said. He owns a Calgary security company. “Did you put them there?” “Huh?” I said.

(By the way, his security company ranks in the top three on Google search results because of Ducktoes’s expert and legitimate SEO.)

These posts link back to their (the hackers) own client’s site, which in this case is an essay writing site. Oh, the irony, the irony! Badly written essays (posts) linking to essay writing site.

Did the hackers think we would not notice all these weird blog posts? It doesn’t seem worth all the effort to break into a website, then write several posts, however badly written, only to have them immediately taken down. It must have taken hours to do all that work. Wouldn’t their time be better served to do legitimate SEO, given the short shelf life of their bad SEO?

Here’s one of the wonderful posts. Click it to see it better.

Why might you ask, do hackers do black hat SEO? They do it as a supposed shortcut to real SEO, part of which is getting links to their clients’ sites. Links can raise a site in Google search results. For instance, if you were a student looking for an essay to hand in, you might search “essay company.” An essay company that ranked high on Google would show up in your top search results.

So the hacker makes links in the blog posts, just for the links’ sake, so their client will get better search results. They break in and vandalize someone else’s site for this instead of writing real posts that people actually want to read.

By the way, these particular hackers injected code into the site to make a back door to gain entrance, so they could write the posts.

If your site gets hacked, by the way, for whatever nefarious purposes, we can unhack it for you.

We can also do legitimate SEO for you to get your higher on Google and other search engines.

Here’s the link to our SEO page. We are a Calgary SEO agency.

Ciao for now.

Calgary Author Jack Dunn Visits Ducktoes

Yesterday at Ducktoes, we had quite the treat. Calgary author Jack Dunn dropped by asked for computer help. The Globe and Mail was about to publish a review of his book, “The North-West Mounted Police 1873 -1885” and needed an image of the bookcover. Jack, not that much of a techie, asked for help. Glad to oblige, I found the image on his cd and sent it by email to the Globe and Mail reporter.

His quite comprehensive book was based on research found in newspapers, diaries, and letters from those years. It contains previously 15 unpublished photos and illustrations among many others. Here’s a webpage from the Glenbow Museum showing his sources.

If you’d like a copy of this book, email Jack at jfdunn@telus.net.

If you need any kind of computer help stop by our website or computer shop.

We also are well-known for our Calgary SEO services.

New Website for Evolve – We’re Really Proud of This One

Evolve Kitchens approached us a while ago looking to build a new website that was optimized to rank the second it launched. It is always a fun challenge to integrate the culture of a company into a website, and Evolve made it easy with a wonderful body of work to draw from. Their gallery of kitchen cabinets is awe-inspiring.

Here is a capture of their website before they came to us, pulled from the Wayback Machine.

Evolve Kitchen’s Old Website

It had a few problems affecting its performance. It didn’t fill up modern screens and was hosted on an old server that made loading times longer than they should be. It was built using a now defunct Apple web design program, causing huge headaches to make even the most basic of updates. The navigation was clunky and hard to follow. It wasn’t mobile responsive. In short, it was very lacking the areas that define a modern, well-built website. It needed a complete overall, and we were excited to build them something new from the ground up.

Many hours of hard work later, our design team produced this beautiful new website:

Evolve’s New Website

This modern website reflects Evolve Kitchen’s exceptionally high standards for good quality and good design – values that we share and were happy to infuse into their site. Our mission was to create for Evolve the same feeling of walking into a kitchen of beautiful new custom made cabinets, when customers entered their website. We also optimized it for Calgary SEO rankings.

While also being mobile responsive! Here is what their site looks like on a phone:

You too can get your website problems solved at Ducktoes Web Design. With us, you’ll receive a website design that is visually appealing and displays your strengths and corporate or company culture and also is fast and looks good on any screen.

Ducktoes Bursary: Helping to Close the Technology Gap

Woman focused on career and studies in technology.

Ducktoes SEO is proud to sponsor this bursary.

Ducktoes is proud to announce its bursary for women studying technology. Since women are still hugely unrepresented in technologies careers, owner Cathie Dunklee-Donnell wanted to do something to encourage more women to enter the fields of technology.

As a SAIT graduate and former teacher, Cathie notes: “The reason I was able to start and run a successful tech business was because of my training in computer technology from SAIT and I’m so glad I persevered and followed through with my studies. It wasn’t easy — I had a young family to care for, but the rewards made it all worth it.”
— Catherine Dunklee-Donnell,
Owner, Ducktoes SEO and Computer Services

After learning computer networking and technology at SAIT, Dunklee-Donnell found that many opportunities opened for her, leading to her success as an entrepreneur in business. She now wants to help other women be successful through careers in technology.

To read more, please go to our Calgary SEO page: https://www.ducktoes.com/calgary-seo.php or to the press release about this on Marketwired.

Cherry Pie Appreciation

Last week our client Susan Goldsmith brought us a cherry pie to thank us for the computer repair we did for her. Yesterday she brought us homemade carrot cake.

I told her in the interest of weight management, we’d no longer be able to fix her computers. No, not really, we love people to drop by the shop for a visit and a cup of coffee or tea, with or without baking. It is so wonderful to be appreciated. The cherry pie went so fast I almost didn’t get a photo before it was gone. And if you’re wondering why, I think that foot in the bottom right of the photo belongs to Liz our SEO Calgary coordinator. Unfortunately, I didn’t get evidence of the other feet from the techs downstairs and the web design staff.

Our computer repair department has been extremely busy the last couple of weeks. We are so grateful that so many Calgarians trust us to repair their computers.

Thank you Susan for being such an awesome client and giving you your business and appreciation. We appreciate you and our other clients in return.