If your business website suddenly appears in Google with Japanese product titles, unfamiliar URLs or listings for things you do not sell, treat it as a reason to investigate. Changing your SEO title is unlikely to address the underlying problem.

I saw this pattern while working on Supermover’s WordPress recovery. The useful questions were what the website was serving, how the unwanted pages were being created and what needed checking before search clean-up could be meaningful.

What is the Japanese keyword hack?

This is a form of website compromise that creates unauthorised pages containing Japanese text, often promoting unrelated products. The content can appear in search results while ordinary visits seem normal. Different visitors can be shown different content, a technique called cloaking. Google’s Japanese keyword hack guide describes that pattern and recommends investigating unfamiliar URLs and Search Console ownership changes.

The language alone does not prove a hack. A legitimate multilingual website may have Japanese pages. The warning sign is content or behaviour that the business did not authorise.

Record the evidence before changing things

Keep a few example result URLs, screenshots, the date you noticed the issue and any message from your host. Note recent changes and whether customers have reported redirects. Do not click through suspicious destinations or bypass browser security warnings to investigate.

WordPress recommends documenting symptoms and timing and involving the hosting provider. That gives whoever investigates a useful starting point instead of a collection of changes whose order is unclear. See the WordPress hacked-site guidance.

Fix the website before relying on search-result removal

I separate the work into the website investigation and the search follow-up. The first asks what is generating or serving the spam and what access needs securing. The second asks what Google can now see and what action is appropriate for the unwanted URLs.

Google’s Removals tool can temporarily hide results, normally for about six months. It does not remove the content from your server or repair a compromise. Carefully scope any removal request: hiding the whole domain could also hide the pages your business needs.

Where an unwanted page has genuinely been removed and has no replacement, an appropriate not-found response matters. A page displaying “not found” while returning a successful response can be treated differently. Google explains these distinctions in its HTTP status-code guidance. Redirecting every spam URL to your homepage is not evidence that the underlying problem has been fixed.

What the Supermover evidence actually showed

The supplied Google results showed legitimate removals content mixed with unrelated Japanese product listings. A Search Console screenshot also showed roughly 177,000 pages in the not indexed total, alongside 187 indexed pages.

Those are different measures. It would be wrong to describe the screenshot as proof of 177,000 indexed spam pages, or to attribute every excluded URL to the hack without examining it. The case study records the investigation, website work and search follow-up without claiming a measured ranking recovery that had not yet been established.

Read the Supermover case study and see the evidence.

How do you know recovery is progressing?

Ask for a clear account of what was found, what was changed and what still needs checking. If Search Console lists a security issue, Google says to resolve the issues throughout the site, test the fixes and then request a review. Its examples may not be a complete list of affected pages. See Google’s Security issues report guidance.

I would also agree the business checks: can customers reach the right service pages, send an enquiry and complete any important booking journey? A good recovery update should explain both website functionality and unresolved security or search work.

Get help with Japanese search spam

I offer WordPress hack recovery for Sussex businesses, with hourly work and an agreed scope and budget. Send your website address, symptoms and any hosting notice. I will confirm availability and the next step; please do not send passwords by email.