WordPress Malware Removal: 191 Hacked Sites Fixed in 14 Days

WordPress Malware Removal for 191 Hacked Sites in 14 Days

WordPress malware removal case study: I cleaned 191 hacked sites for a US client, fixed the Japanese keyword hack in Google, hardened security and moved every site to SiteGround in 14 days, six weeks ahead of the 8-week plan.

A client in the United States came to me with a problem most site owners never face at this scale: 191 hacked WordPress sites in one network. Every site had been hit by the Japanese keyword hack, and they all sat on unstable hosting that made each fix harder. The original plan gave the WordPress malware removal 8 weeks. The client needed the network back sooner, so I cleaned, secured and migrated all 191 sites in 14 days.

A 50-second walkthrough of the job, from 29,300 spam pages in Google to a clean malware scan.

The problem: a network-wide Japanese keyword hack

The Japanese keyword hack, also called Japanese SEO spam, fills a WordPress site with thousands of fake shop pages that only Google sees. Visitors get the normal site, so owners often find out only when their search results turn into a Japanese store. One site in this network had 10,400 spam pages indexed. Another had 29,300. Backdoors brought the pages back after every manual cleanup, and the hosting kept going down while the work was in progress.

Google search for one hacked WordPress site showing about 10,400 Japanese keyword hack spam pages indexed

How I removed the malware from 191 WordPress sites

1. A full malware scan on every site

Each of the 191 sites got a complete scan of its files and database before anything changed. Backups came first, so nothing could be lost along the way.

2. Cleaning infected files and databases

Replaced infected WordPress core, theme and plugin files with clean copies.
Removed backdoors and the scripts that kept regenerating spam pages.
Cleaned injected code, hidden links and spam text from the databases.
Deleted unknown admin accounts left behind by the attackers.

3. Removing the Japanese spam from Google

Cleaning a hacked site is only half the job if Google still shows the spam. I made sure every spam URL returned a proper “not found” response, cleaned up Search Console for each property and pushed Google to recrawl, so the Japanese results dropped out and the real pages came back.

4. WordPress security hardening

Reset passwords and security keys across every site.
Updated WordPress, themes and plugins, and removed anything unused.
Disabled dashboard file editing and blocked PHP in the uploads folder.
Applied updated security settings so a new attack gets stopped early.

5. Migration to SiteGround

The old hosting was a big part of the problem, so all 191 cleaned sites moved to SiteGround for better stability and performance. After the move I tested every site, checked links and confirmed the hardening was still in place.

The result

Before and after WordPress malware removal: 29,300 Japanese spam pages in Google before, and a clean scan with no malware and no blacklisting after

All 191 hacked WordPress sites cleaned, secured and migrated.
Zero re-infections after delivery.
Delivered in 14 days, six weeks ahead of the 8-week plan.
Clean search results, stable hosting and a network the client can rely on again.

What the client said

Five-star client review for the WordPress malware removal: One of the best developers I worked with

Need a WordPress security expert?

Whether it is one hacked site or a whole network, I can remove the malware, fix the Japanese keyword hack in Google and lock the site down so it stays clean. Get your hacked site cleaned, or read about a single-site Japanese spam cleanup I did for a school in Germany.