There is a thread in the Polish Google Webmaster Help forums that I’ve been tracking for a while. I don’t speak Polish, but I’ve been given help on the translation from both Google Translate and webmasters. In short, Google is now investigating a hacker who is stealing traffic from other webmasters by tricking Google into thinking the hacker’s site is the original one that should rank.

PDK explained the issue that has started last month:

Now, this type of hacking is not new. In fact, Google last year spent a month on preventing hacking, they called it NoHack and this is one of the many examples of issues.

Now, Michal Wicinski from Google responded asking for specific examples, which he then got and referred them to the search quality team.

Michal wrote:

Since then he referred the issue to the team.

One webmaster shared this screen shot showing how much traffic (or visibility) this hacker has seen recently from his hacking.

Forum discussion at Polish Google Webmaster Help.

Update: The Google spam team is on the job.