How Open Journal Theme helped restore the security, stability, and Google Scholar visibility of Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang’s journals after months of attacks and unwanted content.
It Started With a Phone Call in June
In June 2026, we received a call from one of the people responsible for managing the academic journals at Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM).
During the conversation, the journal manager described a serious situation that had been affecting their journal platform for approximately three to four months.
The journal websites had repeatedly been targeted by attackers. Several journals had also been compromised with pages and links promoting online gambling and other unwanted content.
As the attacks continued, the journal platform became unstable and frequently unavailable. To prevent the situation from becoming worse, UMM temporarily disabled public access to its journals.
Although this was necessary at the time, it created another major problem. Because the journal websites remained unavailable for an extended period, articles that had previously been indexed could no longer be found when the UMM journal domain was searched on Google Scholar.
For a journal manager, this is a deeply concerning situation. Every published article represents the work of authors, editors, reviewers, and the entire journal team. When those articles disappear from Google Scholar, their visibility decreases and the reputation of the journals may also be affected.
An academic journal must do more than remain accessible. It must also be secure, stable, and trusted by search engines.
Our First Meeting With the UMM Team
During the initial phone call, the UMM representative asked us to arrange a meeting with the journal managers and information technology team. They also wanted to learn more about the journal protection and support services provided by Open Journal Theme.
Two days later, we held our first meeting with the IT team and representatives of the affected journals.
During this meeting, we focused on listening. We wanted to understand what had happened, how long the problems had existed, and how they were affecting UMM’s journal publishing activities.
We also asked how the UMM team had learned about Open Journal Theme. One of the participants explained that they had received a recommendation from one of our existing clients who was already using our journal support and security services.
That recommendation became the starting point of our collaboration with UMM.
Four Main Problems Identified
Based on the discussion, we identified four main problems:
1. The journals were receiving large numbers of spam user registrations.
2. Several journal pages had been compromised with online gambling content and links.
3. The journal websites were frequently unavailable.
4. Published articles had disappeared from Google Scholar results.
These problems were closely connected. Removing only the visible unwanted content would not be enough. We needed to examine the journal platform as a whole, clean the affected areas, and reduce the risk of the same problems happening again.
Developing a Recovery Plan
After the first meeting, the Open Journal Theme team began preparing a recovery plan, project stages, and estimated timeline.
We submitted our proposal to UMM. Shortly afterward, a second meeting was arranged to discuss the plan and how each stage would be carried out.
During the second meeting, the Open Journal Theme and UMM teams reviewed the priorities and agreed on an implementation strategy. Both parties then reached an agreement to begin the journal recovery project.
Our goal was not simply to make the journal websites accessible again. We wanted to ensure that the platform was clean, stable, protected, and able to regain its visibility on Google Scholar.
A Surprising Discovery: More Than One Million Registered Users
Two days after the agreement, Open Journal Theme began preparing a safer environment for the UMM journal platform. At the same time, the UMM team prepared the journal files and data required for the transfer.
Once the transfer had been completed, we began examining the journal files and registered user accounts.
This was when we discovered something unexpected.
The platform contained 1,178,396 registered users.
This number was far higher than the estimated number of genuine journal users. We therefore focused on separating legitimate accounts from accounts created automatically or used for spam activities.
The process was carried out carefully to protect the accounts belonging to authors, editors, reviewers, and journal managers.
After the filtering and cleaning process, 442,514 user accounts remained.
This means that more than 735,000 accounts identified as spam or illegitimate were removed.
The discovery showed that attacks on journals are not always immediately visible. A website may appear normal to visitors while hundreds of thousands of suspicious accounts remain hidden in the background, placing additional pressure on the platform and creating security risks.
Finding Dozens of Accounts With Administrator Access
Once the journal files and user accounts had been cleaned, we prepared the websites to be made publicly accessible again.
We also installed the journal protection system developed by Open Journal Theme to help monitor unusual activity.
The initial inspection found 38 accounts with administrator-level access.
Administrator access provides extensive control over a journal platform. Every account with this level of access therefore had to be reviewed to ensure that it belonged to an authorized person.
Unknown accounts and accounts that no longer required administrative access were restricted. This step helped ensure that only officially authorized journal managers could access important areas of the platform.
Removing Unwanted Content From Google Search
Cleaning the journal platform was not the end of the work.
The unwanted content had already left traces in Google Search. Reports showed that some journal pages had been discovered through search terms unrelated to academic publishing. Other pages led visitors to online gambling and inappropriate content.
Most visitors would not have seen these pages when opening the journal normally. Search engines, however, could still find and store them.
This is why compromised content should never be treated as a minor problem. Its effects can extend beyond the visible appearance of the website and may damage the reputation of the journal domain.
We helped remove the unwanted pages from Google Search while also ensuring that the source of the problem had been addressed.
Keeping the Journals Available
After completing the cleaning process, our attention shifted to website stability.
The journals needed to remain consistently accessible so that Google and Google Scholar could revisit and read the article pages. When a journal is frequently unavailable, the discovery and indexing process may be interrupted.
We continued monitoring the UMM journal platform after it was brought back online. We made sure that article pages could be opened, publication files were available, and no new unwanted content appeared.
There is no instant method for forcing every article to return to Google Scholar. Our responsibility was to ensure that the journals were clean, stable, and consistently accessible. Google Scholar then needed time to revisit and evaluate the article pages.
The Good News Arrived Ten Days Later
Before the recovery process, searching for the UMM journal domain on Google Scholar did not return any articles.
We continued monitoring the platform while waiting for Google Scholar to revisit the journal pages.
Approximately ten days after the cleaning and recovery work had been completed, the good news finally arrived.
The UMM journal articles began appearing on Google Scholar again. At the time of our inspection, a domain search returned approximately 4,670 results.
The return of these articles was an important result for everyone involved. For the UMM team, it meant that publications that had previously disappeared could once again be found by students, lecturers, researchers, and the wider academic community.
For us, it confirmed that restoring Google Scholar visibility involves more than simply resubmitting a journal address. The overall condition of the journal platform must first be restored.
What We Learned From the UMM Journal Recovery
This case showed us that the disappearance of articles from Google Scholar may occur alongside several problems: a journal website being unavailable for too long, the presence of unwanted content, excessive spam registrations, and a possible loss of trust in the journal domain.
We cannot state that one particular factor is always the sole cause because Google Scholar does not publicly disclose every part of its evaluation process. However, this experience clearly demonstrates the importance of keeping a journal clean, secure, stable, and accessible.
The good news is that disappearing from Google Scholar does not always mean that the loss is permanent.
If the journal data and articles remain available, the source of the problem can be removed, and the website becomes consistently accessible again, there is still a possibility that the articles will return to Google Scholar.
Threats Are Not Always Visible
A journal may appear perfectly normal from its homepage. Articles may still be available, menus may work, and journal managers may still be able to sign in.
Behind that normal appearance, however, there may be unauthorized accounts, hidden pages, or unwanted content that is gradually damaging the reputation of the journal domain.
This is why regular inspections are essential. Journal managers should not wait until the website becomes unavailable or articles disappear from Google Scholar before taking action.
Our experience with Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang reminds us that protecting a journal is not only about preventing attacks. It is also about maintaining the trust of authors, protecting the institution’s reputation, and ensuring that published research remains discoverable.
If your journal is experiencing similar problems—articles disappearing from Google Scholar, frequent website downtime, an unusual number of registered users, or unfamiliar content appearing in search results—recovery may still be possible.
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