The Core

Why We Are Here => Water Cooler => Topic started by: Rooftop on January 25, 2016, 03:23:53 PM

Title: GWMT for evil
Post by: Rooftop on January 25, 2016, 03:23:53 PM
I'm not up to anything bad, but was looking for interesting examples of how someone might use webmaster tools access for evil.
(Inspired by a client with a lot of unrecognised users, I thought I'd write something about it.  I suspect that the warped minds of core members can come up with some nice examples).

I've got:

De-index everything!
Hide malicious software downloads from google
disavow all their links
steel their search data
quickly index new spam pages
un-verify the owner
bugger up crawling (url params or limiting crawl rate)
hijack rankings with the change of address tool (is this possible???)
Title: Re: GWMT for evil
Post by: Drastic on January 26, 2016, 07:09:37 PM
>De-index everything!

That's the only thought that's ever come to mind. I like the hijacking thoughts, only problem is it would be easy to track back to you.

Mental note: do not piss off rooftop
Title: Re: GWMT for evil
Post by: ukgimp on January 28, 2016, 07:28:43 PM
If you want to get dirty I have seen htaccess files hacked. Now that's nasty. Who checks those?

Me, these days :-)

Ot even httpd.conf file as you can do the same.
Title: Re: GWMT for evil
Post by: Rooftop on January 29, 2016, 04:22:19 PM
I've seen .htaccess get hacked (including to allow GWMT authorisation files to show as valid).  httpd.conf is proper evil though.  I dread to think how long it would take me before thinking of checking that.