Supermover’s website needed more than a refresh. Visitors were encountering unwanted redirects, while Google was displaying Japanese product listings under the company’s domain. This gives brand damage as well as causing long-term indexing issues.
The priority was to regain control of the website, remove the malicious content and address the search indexing problems. From there, the project developed into a wider improvement programme: clearer services, stronger local content and a website the business could maintain through WordPress.
I investigated the WordPress installation, hosting files and database, preserving backups before making destructive changes.
The recovery work covered suspicious files, injected content, unauthorised accounts and potentially unsafe plugins. Legitimate access was retained, administrator access was restored and Wordfence was used to support the security audit.
Backup evidence identified WP2Shell activity. That established evidence of compromise, but it did not conclusively establish the original entry point. Without the necessary historical server logs, attributing the initial breach to a particular plugin would have gone beyond the evidence. Hint: any plugin removed from wordpress directory is a potential candidate.
I performed a clean install, replaced a lot of outdated plugins, and secured the site.
What I saw on my mobile. Hacks like this damage businesses and lose them new leads and consumer trust
Cleaning the website was only part of the recovery of course. Spam URLs could remain visible in Google after their content had been removed. Hackers like this add google verification into the site and have GSC access to index the pages.
The work therefore extended to Google Search Console, verification and access checks, and removal requests for indexed spam using the removal tool and thankfully they had clear paths to make easy removal (search query strings are a huge problem). I added every variant and removed their access.
A crucial technical issue was how the website responded to unwanted URLs. Some spam URLs were returning a successful page response rather than clearly reporting that the content no longer existed. I addressed that behaviour so removed spam could return an appropriate 404 or 410 response, absolutely essential for them to drop off the index.
I also reviewed crawling restrictions. Google needs to be able to revisit a removed URL to see its updated status; blocking that visit in robots.txt can delay recognition that the content is gone.
Search recovery remains dependent on Google recrawling and processing those changes. Removal requests support the process, but they do not replace fixing the underlying website.
Hacks like these result in hackers pushing Google to index a huge amount of pages
Once the immediate recovery work was addressed, attention moved to helping visitors understand what Supermover offers. And this I think is what makes me unique, as I asked him what extra work would change his world. It’s not about getting extra calls, it’s getting the right type to be useful. And I always apply a thought process about what I personally look for in a business when making a decision.
The website gained a clearer navigation structure and dedicated pages covering:
Service pages were developed with practical information, FAQs, calls to action, coverage information and review sections.
The main telephone number was standardised across call and WhatsApp links, making it easier for customers to contact the business consistently (typical of shoddy overpriced work by previously Webdevs, one of the numbers wasn’t even his!)
Dedicated pages were created for Brighton, Hove, Shoreham-by-Sea, Southwick and Portslade to help traffic in these key areas. As lets be honest, the real win is work close to home when you are a parent. Every extra hour spent travelling, is an hour less with our children.
An “Areas we cover” block linked visitors directly to those pages. On the homepage, this replaced the oversized map, giving that space a clearer navigational purpose. Service pages retained a map pointing to the business.
A central requirement was that everyday content changes should be easy for the client. No business should need developers for simple changes.
The theme was extended with Advanced Custom Fields, allowing supported content to be managed in WordPress. Theme code handled the presentation, while editable fields controlled the content.
Reviews were a particularly important improvement and a huge part of trust signals. The initial shared review block was changed into a system using the existing Testimonials library, with individual pages able to select and order their own testimonials.
The three existing editable reviews were migrated into Testimonials and assigned to the homepage only. Other pages could then receive relevant selections without automatically repeating the same reviews everywhere.
The review display retained its full-width slider styling and centred stars.
The visual changes focused on making the website easier to read and navigate:
These changes addressed practical browsing problems, including consecutive image blocks on mobile and important content taking too long to appear.
The website was updated to reflect the business more accurately, including its operation since 2014 and its goods in transit and public liability insurance.
Company information was added to the footer, and customer-facing terms were prepared and published following approval.
Image work included updating 23 media titles, adding descriptive alternative text to meaningful images and leaving decorative imagery without unnecessary descriptions.
Content photographs were updated to use responsive WordPress image output, allowing browsers to select appropriately sized versions. Service and location hero images also received improved sizing instructions.
The SEO infrastructure was moved forward with my own SiteGraph plugin.
The project progressed from urgent hack recovery into a broader rebuild of the website’s structure, content management and customer experience.
Supermover now has clearer service and location pages, more consistent contact routes, improved mobile presentation, linked coverage information and a review system that can be controlled page by page through WordPress.
The technical and content improvements are in place. Their effect on search visibility, enquiries and bookings should be measured over time; those commercial outcomes have not yet been established.
What Search Console recordedThe supplied Search Console capture shows 177K pages not indexed and 187 indexed. Its breakdown includes 176,144 pages marked “Discovered – currently not indexed”. These figures describe indexing status; they are not a count of spam pages appearing in search.
site:supermover.co.uk, showing the genuine removals listing alongside multiple unrelated Japanese product listings.
