Negative SEO, also known as adverse SEO, is the attempt to harm a business’ visibility in search engine results. The goal of this type of SEO is aimed at stealing keyword rankings and traffic. The purpose of this tactic is to make the target website look like it is using SEO spam tactics that violate search engine policies. Because of this, search engines will suppress the site results. Additionally, the site looks bad to users so they choose not to visit the site.
Using negative SEO is unethical and can even be illegal in some instances. Often, it tends to be ineffective. Search engines can quickly spot negative SEO attacks. It is important to be aware of the different types of negative SEO attacks and how to deal with them.
One of the most common types of negative SEO attacks is hacking. Hackers can gain unauthorized access to a website an harm its SEO. They can delete or edit your content, redirect URLs to spam pages, and insert malicious code. To protect your site, you can regularly scan your website with security software, enable security alerts, and investigate declines in SEO results.
Link removals happen when competitors try to remove backlinks of your site. Competitors pretend to act on your businesses behave and ask the referring site to remove the link. To remedy this, you can look at a “lost and found” report to see the backlinks you’ve lost. You can then reach out to the site if you choose and ask them to reinstate it. Additionally, link building is the process of building spam links to a target site, with the goal of making search engines penalize the target site. Audits can be done to remedy this.
Smear campaigns are an effort to spread false and damaging information about a person or business. They might write a defamatory blog post, create fake social media, or spread rumors. To protect your business, you can respond to comments and use brand monitoring. It is important to keep track of these negative SEO tactics to protect your brand.
7 Responses
in today’s digital landscape, where competition is fierce and online visibility is paramount, awareness of negative SEO tactics is crucial for businesses of all sizes. By staying informed and implementing proactive measures to protect against such attacks, businesses can mitigate risks and preserve their hard-earned reputation and success.
This is a well-written article. I like how you focused on all the downsides of negative SEO. You honed in on multiple different types of negative SEO as well, which was beneficial.
This is a really solid post. I don’t think many business/website owners truly understand the power hackers have and how much damage they can do to your business without even meeting you. The picture is also a nice touch.
This is a great post, I learned so much! I really appreciated how you brought up the idea of competitors taking down offsite links. Many people don’t think this happens but it does! You need to be aware of the amount of links you have and if the number changes this may be the case. Competitors will do many things to try to beat you in the competition and its important to be aware of all of these.
Great post, the one thing I would add is to include a meta tag on the photo that you used. this will be very helpful in the SEO for this kind of post.
I learned a lot in this post! It was well- written, engaging, and very informative. You laid everything out very clearly too! Great post!
SEO spam is a scary concept. As I read further into your blog, I thought “Well how do I avoid this?” I appreciate that you added a few tactics to monitor for hackers and spam. Its good to be aware of the potential malware targeting your site.