Security problem: Users name published in FAQ Snippet

#699193
  • Resolved Anonymous
    Rank Math free

    Hi, I´m really upset. I used the FAQ scheme and it has published my users name in google, without any other helpful content.
    It just says:

    “Welcome, (MY NAME) (USERS NAME) Profile Login, Profile Logout, No results, Home, Newsletter, About me, BLOG, CONTACT, FAQ, SEARCH”

    This is a severe security problem. I deleted the FAQ scheme immediateley and changed it into normal text, changed the author, added a CSS in the customizer and asked for an immediate index.
    But naturally it´s still online.

    How can this happen and how can I be sure that my sensitive data are not online anymore?

    Best wishes
    Ul

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Hello,

    We’re really sorry to hear about the issue you’re facing. We understand your concern and we’d like to help you with this.

    It seems that the issue you’re facing is related to the FAQ Schema and how Google is displaying the information. We understand that this is a severe security problem and we appreciate you taking immediate action to mitigate the issue.

    The first thing you should do is to ensure that the sensitive data is removed from your website. You’ve already taken some steps to address this, such as deleting the FAQ schema, changing the author, and adding a CSS in the customizer. Additionally, you’ve requested an immediate index, which is a good step.

    To ensure that your sensitive data is not online anymore, you can use the URL Removal Tool in Google Search Console. This tool allows you to temporarily block pages from Google Search results. Here’s a link to the tool: URL Removal Tool.

    If you need further assistance with this, please feel free to let us know. We’re here to help.

    Best regards

    Sources:
    How to Fix Duplicate Field “FAQPage” Error » Rank Math
    How To Effectively & Efficiently Get Support from Rank Math (Support Tickets) » Rank Math
    How to Fix ‘Automatic Update is Unavailable for this Plugin’ Error in Rank Math » Rank Math
    How Long Before You See Results With SEO » Rank Math

    Anonymous
    Rank Math free

    Hello,

    I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?

    Thank you.

    Hello,

    Thank you for contacting support.

    Our plugin will never add any information that you want to keep private. All the data from the authors that are added to the Schema markup comes from either the author public page or the display name you have selected for it in the profile settings.

    In either of the situations, that information is already publicly available so we are not sharing any sensitive data with the public audience.

    Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any other questions.

    Anonymous
    Rank Math free

    Yes, I have selected a name to run my website. But I would never publish it. And obviously the FAQ scheme publishes more than I wanted to. Google can extract informations, that I hide.

    So for me there is one more question: Is the FAQ Scheme the problem, and since I deleted it, my name is safe again?

    Regards
    Ul

    Hello,

    Google algorithm alone decides what to show on the SERPs and most times it determines it based on the perceived search intent of the search query. When the site is setup correctly, Google typically adapts the site title from the Meta title/H1 and the description from the meta description.

    Even at that Google can choose to display a different title and description. It is a pretty common thing with Google these days. It happens with 70% of the results and we even have a KB dedicated to this problem and a few solutions we recommend:

    Please check the KB and you will understand the reasons Google does this:
    https://rankmath.com/kb/different-meta-title-and-description/

    While you have to noindex a page to prevent it from being indexed, you can use googleon/googleoff tags to exclude certain parts of a webpage from crawling by Google: https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/16390/preventing-robots-from-crawling-specific-part-of-a-page

    If you want to remove the URL from SERPs you can refer to this article: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9689846?hl=en#zippy=%2Cclear-cached-url%2Ctemporarily-remove-url

    We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns.

    Thank you.

    Hello,

    Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.

    If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.

    Thank you.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The ticket ‘Security problem: Users name published in FAQ Snippet’ is closed to new replies.