Massive HaxorSEO backlink marketplace examined

Newly identified SEO poisoning marketplace HaxorSEO, also known as HxSEO, has been offering over a thousand backlinks to legitimate web domains compromised with a webshell that boosts the websites' search rankings, reports Infosecurity Magazine.

Most of the domains provided by HaxorSEO, which could be availed for $6 each, are 15 to 20 years old and include SEO poisoning metrics, such as page authority, domain authority, and domain rating, as well as a spam score, which gauges the potential of the domain being flagged as spam, an analysis from Fortra's Intelligence and Research Experts team revealed.

"Once payment is made, the group will add the backlink along with the malicious address to the legitimate domain, increasing the buyers likelihood of successfully achieving their goals," said researchers.

While efforts to dismantle the illicit web pages alongside domain service providers and search engines are already underway, users have been urged to be more discerning of URLs when doing web searches.