Your website is the lifeline of your business in the current technology-driven world. Whether you are in e-Commerce or not, your website is almost always the face of your company or organization. It represents your brand, showcases your credibility, and drives your sales.
Every website is vulnerable to being hacked when there are inadequate security measures in place. It is important to have measures in place to make sure that malware and hackers do not compromise your website’s security.
Your website being hacked is nothing nice. If your website has been compromised, you may experience significant damage to your company’s reputation, website privacy, web traffic, and a negative shift in search engine rankings. Your website may also be shut down. This article is a quick guide to help you spot signs that your web traffic has been hijacked.
Has Malware Hijacked Your Web Traffic?
You would not easily know if malware has hijacked your web traffic, you need to have a strong Anti-Malware. You have to put extra effort to monitor your web traffic, and understand when something is not right.
When doing its dirty work, a malware is not only hard to detect, but it also blocks security features put in place to help you notice them. However, there are still some signs that can show you when malware has hijacked your web traffic.
Below are four signs that show how malware has hijacked your web traffic.
1. No results from third-party services on your site
Third-party tools or services can be an incredible asset to your site. They can make your site look dynamic, more interactive, and better connected. Furthermore, these tools can also help your website gain more traffic and increase your revenue stream.
If you have installed a third-party service on your site, such as a special discount code pop-up or the popular Hello Bar subscription toolbar, but you do not see significant results, there’s a chance a malware entity is responsible for the problem.
There is a chance that the malware is blocking your visitors from seeing pop-ups or the bar. The pop-ups may also be blocked through an overlaid injected ad.
2. Your website’s traffic and conversion numbers do not tally
Are you getting clicks but no conversions when you buy traffic? If so, something must be a miss. The first thing that will run to your mind is to check if your marketing funnel is healthy, but since you know it’s healthy and working well, you’ll be left wondering what else could be causing the problem.
3. You can tweak the funnel, that’s okay
However, you need to check your site for a malware attack. A malware entity must have attacked your website and it is hijacking or redirecting your web traffic. This could be the reason behind the traffic and conversion numbers not adding up.
Your customers are complaining about suspicious surveys and competitor ads.
Customers will always complain – it is normal. But don’t ignore the customer’s complaints because they are often a source of insight to your website, and your business as a whole. For every customer who takes their time to report an issue (complain), there are one hundred others who just gave up and searched elsewhere.
There has been an increase in malware that injects fake surveys or a competitor’s ad into a website’s experience. Fake surveys and competitor ads are disturbingly effective at redirecting users off your site.
It doesn’t require much to lose a customer’s interest on your site. Just a mere interface experience, such as if your site looks ‘off,’ the customer will simply assume it is because of a security issue on your end. As a result, you’ve lost the customer, and your brand integrity.
4. Rise in bounce rate coupled with drops in conversion rates
A high bounce rate never always means there is an issue.
If a user lands on your site and is looking for something, it would not be unusual for the customer to land and bounce. A visit to your site would still translate to a conversion.
However, the problem comes when users land, bounce, and no conversion is realized. You will then be triggered to find out why there are such high bounce rates with low conversion numbers.
Nothing can be more worrisome than when your website conversion rates are dropping. The worry will increase when you realize that you have high bounce rates. A combination of these two always points to a malware on the client’s side.
A high bounce rate with dropping conversion rate is an alarm that you must take seriously. The explanation can be, either your web visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for on your site or something is distracting or redirecting them off your website.
If the users are not finding what they are looking for on your site, it may be attributed to the design of your website. However, it is also possible that there’s malware hijacking your website, and blocking traffic from accessing it or redirecting visitors to other sites.
Conclusion
If any of the four signs mentioned above sound familiar, then your website is probably a victim of malware hijacking without your knowledge.
All websites are vulnerable to malware hijacking, and various factors can cause your website to be hijacked. Sometimes, it can be related to hacking.
You need to always keep a keen eye out for these signs of web traffic being hijacked by malware. You can make use of trusted software from websites like Software Tested. Do not wait until the situation is out of hand, and your business is losing customers, integrity, and credibility.
We believe that the information in this article can help you identify if your web traffic has been hijacked by malware.
