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By Florin Muresan, Founder of AISQ
A client in my 90-Day Growth Program went from an exposed WordPress website to a stronger foundation for SEO growth. During Month 1, our team moved 32 WP Ghost security checks into the green and addressed urgent vulnerabilities. The client subsequently achieved substantial SEO growth, including rankings for highly competitive keywords; a later outcome I’m adding to this originally published security case study.
The work began with a discovery the client had not expected: their website looked fine, but our checks revealed weaknesses and repeated attempts to exploit them.
The case at a glance
| Detail | What happened |
|---|---|
| Type of client | A business operating a WordPress website, enrolled in Florin Muresan’s 90-Day Growth Program. (A very popular jeweler in the US, who also runs an ecommerce store) |
| Starting problem | Outdated plugins, exposed files, exposed WordPress paths, weak Firewall, weak login protection, and recurring malicious activity. |
| Documented result | 32 items moved into the green in the WP Ghost Security Scan; urgent issues were fixed. |
| Later SEO outcome | Substantial SEO growth and rankings for highly competitive keywords, reported by Florin following the original case study. |
| Timeframe | Security work took place during Month 1 of the 90-day program. |
| Work performed | Security audit, review of attack activity, two configured layers of protection, WP Ghost installation and configuration, security monitoring, and urgent fixes. |
| Business significance | The work addressed an operational risk before further investment in search visibility. Later rankings expanded the client’s visibility in competitive searches. |
The client’s situation: a website that looked ready to grow
From the outside, there was little to suggest how exposed the website was. Especially being such a big name (the owner of the store is very popular), nobody expected issues.
Our first checks told a different story. Plugins were outdated. Files were exposed. Login protection was weak. We also observed malicious IP addresses returning repeatedly, attempting brute-force access and probing for vulnerable WordPress code.
I do this all the time during Month 1 (in the meantime, Florin’s 90 Days Growth Program has become Package 2 of AISQ Growth).
The initial reason is always clear for our client work: we need to address those weaknesses before moving forward with the growth work.
On the day we checked, a hacker was trying to get access by many different methods. It was very lucky that was the exact day we started working on his site. Had it been a different agency, the client’s business would have suffered.
The strategy: fix and protect the foundation first
My 90-Day Growth Program begins with the website’s foundations: speed, technical SEO, and security.
For this client, the security audit established an immediate priority. We had evidence of both vulnerabilities and ongoing attempts to exploit them. Our response was to investigate the activity, configure protection around what we found, and fix urgent issues.
That sequence mattered. The business was investing in becoming more visible. Protecting the website was part of protecting that investment.
This was the approach described in my original October 9, 2025 case study.
What our team did
We began by auditing the website’s security and reviewing the login and hacking attempts already taking place. This revealed repeated visits from malicious IP addresses, including brute-force attempts and probes for vulnerable WordPress code.
We then added and configured two layers of cybersecurity. The protection described in the original case used WP Ghost and WP Cerber together.
Our team installed and configured WP Ghost, a product built by our company, using what we had learned from the site’s activity. We ran its full Security Scan to identify remaining critical threats and fixed urgent issues immediately.
We also continued observing the site. In the original account, I reported that the attempts we had been observing stopped afterward. That observation relates to the activity monitored at the time.
Before and after: 32 security checks moved into the green
The clearest numerical result from this phase was the change in the WP Ghost Security Scan.
| Evidence | Before the work | After the work |
|---|---|---|
| Security scan | Red-orange zone, indicating weak security in the scan | 32 items moved into the green |
| Urgent security issues | Vulnerabilities identified during our checks | Urgent issues fixed |
| Malicious activity | Recurring brute-force attempts and vulnerability probing | The observed attempts were completely stopped |
| Remaining findings | Critical exposure required attention | Remaining findings described as non-critical in the original account |
The figure of 32 refers to security scan items. All of them critical to protect against hacking-bots and also human hackers. It is not a traffic increase, a ranking score, or a count of keywords. Source: original case study.
The growth outcome and why it mattered
The story continued beyond the security report. The client went on to achieve substantial SEO growth and rank for highly competitive keywords.
That is what makes this a growth case study: the initial intervention was one part of the work that supported the client’s progress toward stronger search visibility.
The business significance is the opportunity to be discovered in searches where competition is strong. And since the owner of the store was popular, there were more hacking attempts than we usually find.
It would not have mattered if we started SEO growth BEFORE fixing all this. Security always comes first. Otherwise, our agency would spend 3 months ranking the pages and products, just to have a hack drop all the ranking because Google loses confidence in the brand!!
Security comes first. After that, the SEO results just keep on compounding without interruptions and downsides.
What AISQ learned: and what made progress possible
The lesson I take from this case is that a growth engagement needs to examine what is happening beneath the visible website.
Here, the useful evidence came from combining the audit with observation of real activity. We could see both the weaknesses and the attempts to exploit them. That informed the configuration, the urgent fixes, and the follow-up checks.
The documented ingredients were diagnosis, configuration based on the findings, prompt remediation, and verification.
For a business owner, the practical lesson is to make the website’s readiness part of the growth plan. A site can appear to be working while still needing attention before the next stage of investment.
Related service: Florin Muresan’s 90-Day Growth Program
This engagement took place through my 90-Day Growth Program, which brings website foundations, search visibility, and customer engagement into a staged plan.
It is relevant to business owners who need coordinated work across those areas. A website with a single isolated issue may need a narrower intervention; the scope should follow the findings.
Explore Florin Muresan’s Growth Program to see how we approach the work and discuss what your website needs next.
