I was hired to look into why a WordPress site was so slow back in 2010. It turned out the site was hacked and they were hosting a spam viagra site on the side. When I brought it to their attention, the owner asked: "Can we keep it up? It will help our traffic numbers for investors and probably our Google ranking."
But then your costs get allocated to the spam operation. The owner of the website is benefiting because of the "traffic" they are receiving that is attributed to their non-spam venture. The hacker is benefiting because of the free hosting they are getting. The loser is anyone interested in buying the site and having the price hinge on the traffic.
I was hired to look into why a WordPress site was so slow back in 2010. It turned out the site was hacked and they were hosting a spam viagra site on the side. When I brought it to their attention, the owner asked: "Can we keep it up? It will help our traffic numbers for investors and probably our Google ranking."
I literally face-palmed.