Vendors Collection Page BUG SPAM - ZVL

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Issue Identified:
Multiple Shopify store owners discovered spam URLs appearing in Google search results targeting their vendor collection pages. These malicious links contain Chinese characters and end with “.zvl” extensions, creating thousands of indexed pages over just 2-3 days.

Impact:
Store owners are concerned about negative effects on their Google rankings. Google Search Console shows up to 55+ spam pages indexed for affected stores.

Short-Term Solution:

  • Use Google Search Console’s “Removals” feature
  • Select “Remove all URLs with this prefix”
  • Enter: https://www.yourstore.com/collections/vendors?q=
  • Verify you don’t need any legitimate vendor URLs with this prefix before removing

Long-Term Solution:

  • After URLs are deindexed, add the URL structure to robots.txt to prevent re-crawling
  • Block new spam links from being added
  • Reference provided: Community discussion thread about site hacking

Status:
The issue has been reported to Shopify support. Store owners are actively implementing removal strategies while awaiting a permanent fix.

Summarized with AI on November 24. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi Guys

Today searching google for a product on my site I saw a strange result. See below.

Here is the strange result
Here is the strange result1304Ă—398 67.7 KB

It relates to vendor collections.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjjoL-h1u_7AhXjoVwKHUAvCh4QFnoECBEQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.functionaltennis.com%2Fcollections%2Fvendors%3Fq%3D%25E9%2583%25BD%25E6%259F%258F%25E6%259E%2597%25E5%25A4%2596%25E5%259B%25B4%25E5%25A5%25B3%25E7%25A9%25BA%25E9%2599%258D%25E3%2580%2590%25E5%25BE%25AE%253A977281%25E3%2580%2591.zvl&usg=AOvVaw0Dw3pwnlSaydz0YAn1z7tH

What is going on here, it’s definitely SPAM.

When I look in the Google search console there seem to be 55 pages that relate to this so far.

Search console
Search console2098Ă—1138 378 KB

Can somebody tell me what is going on here and how do I fix this? I’m worried this is effecting my store rankings with Google

Fabio

3 Likes
2

Same problem here. I have reported it to the Shopify support. For us, there are thousands of links that have been created over the past 3 days.

My idea was to first set this link structure to noindex to get all of the links deleted. After they have been deindexed, I’d add the URL structure to the robots.txt, so that they won’t be crawled again and to prevent new links to be added.

3

Short-Term Solution: Go into Google Search Console, select your property, go to “Removals” and choose “New request”. Next step is to choose “Remove all URLs with this prefix” and type in: https://www.yourstore.de/collections/vendors?q=

In our case, there were no Vendor-URL that was needed to be indexed. But anyway, make sure you don’t have any URL with this prefix that needs to be indexed.

Long-Term Solution: https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/has-my-site-been-hacked/m-p/1797712/highlight/true#M321199

2 Likes