A few weeks ago we suffered at the hands of hackers – they’ve been targeting popular SEO sites, so maybe i should have been flattered?

Well I would have been if they hadn’t decided to place ads for all sorts of things I didn’t want my readers seeing ads for!

Withe the help of friendly ecademist Nick Braak we soon got the site up and running again (although we’re still working to add in some pages that were lost).

There’s a great tip on blogstorm today telling you how to use Google Alerts to find out if you have been hacked.

They quote Matt Cutts as saying:

2008 will be the year that hacking and search engine optimization (SEO) collide in a major way. By the end of the year, a nontrivial fraction of blackhat SEO will involve illegally hacking sites for links or landing pages.

One webhost will get a significant black eye as hundreds or thousands of customers’ websites are hacked. The growth of illegal-blackhat SEO will leave traditional blackhats with a difficult choice: risk doing something illegal or sit out.

Scary stuff – pop over to Blogstorm to read how to find out if your site has been hacked.

Don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter – Nikki Pilkington on Twitter