Recovering from repeated security breaches to record-high authority and rankings
Three hacks. Three recoveries. AuraWiz took anandfilters.com from zero keyword visibility to page-one rankings and an all-time-high Domain Authority — despite the site being compromised three to four times along the way.
Client overview
Anand Filters manufactures hydraulic filters, compressed air filters, dust collector cartridges, panel filters, and related filtration equipment for industrial and manufacturing clients across India.
The company relies on anandfilters.com as its primary channel for generating qualified B2B inquiries through organic search. This case study covers the SEO recovery and growth program AuraWiz delivered from July 2023 through September 2026 — a period that included multiple security incidents, a full technical and off-page cleanup, and a sustained content and optimization program that took the site from zero visibility to top rankings today.
The challenge
- Repeated security breaches — anandfilters.com was compromised by hackers 3–4 separate times, each introducing malware that required full remediation before search engines would trust the site again.
- Authority and traffic loss — every breach was followed by a visible drop in Domain Authority and organic traffic as search engines temporarily de-indexed or devalued the compromised site.
- A toxic backlink footprint — the domain had accumulated a number of low-quality, spammy referring domains, the kind that commonly attach themselves to a compromised site.
- No organic visibility at baseline — at the start of the engagement (July 2023), none of the client’s priority target keywords ranked within Google’s top 100 results.
Our approach
A disciplined cycle of technical cleanup, backlink hygiene, and consistent content and on-page optimization.
Technical remediation & hardening
Following each breach, the technical team removed the injected malware, cleaned the affected files and database, and hardened the site to prevent re-infection. The site is now fully malware-free.
Toxic backlink audit & disavow
Audited the site’s complete backlink profile, scoring every referring domain for spam risk and flagging low-quality, spam, and PBN-style links. High-risk links were compiled into a disavow file and removed from the link equation.
Consistent content production
Maintained a steady cadence of 2–3 optimized blog articles per month, covering commercial topics (buying guides, comparisons) and technical topics (maintenance, troubleshooting) relevant to Anand Filters’ buyers.
On-page & keyword optimization
Core product and category pages — hydraulic filters, compressed air filters, dust collector cartridges, panel filters — were systematically optimized for high-intent commercial keywords, supported by ongoing technical SEO and internal linking.
Domain Authority: full recovery to a record high
Each of the three visible crashes below lines up with a hacking incident; each is followed by a full recovery. After the final cleanup, DA didn’t just recover — it climbed past every previous peak to an all-time high of 15.1, up from a baseline of 13.
Figure 1 — Domain Authority history, Jan 2024–Sep 2026. Three hack-related crashes, three full recoveries.
Backlink profile cleanup
All 92 referring domains pointing to anandfilters.com were audited and scored for spam risk. 16 domains were flagged as high-risk — heavily spammed link farms, PBNs, and unrelated foreign-language spam sites — and were disavowed, removing their drag on the domain’s authority and trust signals.
Figure 2 — Spam-risk distribution across the 92 referring domains audited.
Keyword ranking growth
Anand Filters started this engagement with zero visibility — none of its target keywords ranked in Google’s top 100. Since then, the site has moved the large majority of its tracked keywords onto page one, with many now holding the #1–#3 spots.
Figure 3 — A sample of core keywords: unranked at baseline vs. current position.
Current ranking snapshot for a selection of live target keywords:
| Keyword | Position | Monthly Volume | SEO Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| filter manufacturer | 2 | 170 | 29 |
| industrial filter manufacturers | 3 | 110 | 20 |
| hydraulic filters supplier | 2 | 0* | 12 |
| air compressor with filter | 7 | 2,400 | 17 |
| industrial air filters | 8 | 260 | 18 |
| compressed air filters | 11 | 2,400 | 23 |
| air compressor filter | 12 | 2,400 | 21 |
| hydraulic oil filter | 13 | 480 | 19 |
| stainless steel filters | 15 | 320 | 22 |
| filter companies | 18 | 260 | 24 |
| dust collector filter bag | 21 | 590 | 11 |
| hydraulic filter | 21 | 1,000 | 19 |
*Low reported search volume; ranking retained for its commercial relevance.
Visibility in AI Overviews & AI chat assistants
Beyond traditional Google rankings, Anand Filters’ content is now regularly surfaced as the cited source in Google’s AI Overviews and referenced directly by AI assistants such as ChatGPT for relevant filtration and filter-manufacturer queries — a channel that did not exist for the site at the start of the engagement.
Summary
| Metric | Before | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Domain Authority | 13 (baseline) / dropped to 10.8 after the worst breach | 15.1 — an all-time high |
| Site security | Compromised 3–4 times with malware | Fully cleaned and hardened; malware-free |
| Backlink profile | 92 referring domains, incl. 16 high-risk/spam | High-risk links disavowed; cleaner trust profile |
| Keyword visibility (baseline set) | 0 of 29 in top 100 | 18 of 29 in top 10; 11 in top 3 |
| Keyword visibility (2025–26 set) | Mostly unranked / beyond page 3 | 24 of 36 reached the top 10 |
| Content output | Inconsistent | 2–3 published blog posts every month |
| AI search visibility | None | Cited in Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT responses |
Despite repeated security setbacks outside of the SEO team’s control, a disciplined cycle of technical cleanup, backlink hygiene, and consistent content and on-page optimization took anandfilters.com from complete invisibility on its target keywords to page-one rankings, AI-search citations, and the strongest Domain Authority the site has ever recorded.
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