![\"negative](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/negative-seo.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nWe all know that ever since the release of Penguin Algorithm Update<\/a><\/strong>, Google deals harsh penalties for websites that use black hat SEO techniques, so here\u2019s an idea to keep you up at night:<\/p>\n What if a malicious party (say, your closest competitor) starts using those techniques on your<\/em> site just to try and get you penalized?<\/strong><\/p>\n This, ladies and gentlemen, is something that is commonly known as Negative SEO.<\/strong><\/p>\n Negative SEO<\/strong> is the act of using Black Hat SEO on other websites in order to get them penalized by Google<\/a>. Negative SEO can also include reducing the effectiveness of a website\u2019s SEO properties by disabling or altering them.<\/p>\n Dealing with Negative SEO techniques<\/strong> can be quite tricky<\/em> since some of them are out of your control, like pointing bad links<\/a> (a.k.a link bomb) to your site. Another thing is, they are also a bit hard to detect.<\/p>\n Unlike some hacking practices that aim to deface or simply take down a website, a Negative SEO attack<\/strong> doesn\u2019t affect a website\u2019s look and feel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Instead, the effects are only apparent once your website takes a dip in search ranking and incoming traffic.<\/strong><\/p>\n Similar to hackers, people who do Negative SEO<\/strong> attacks might do it for various reasons. It can be intentional, such as sabotaging a competitor\u2019s website<\/strong>, extortion,<\/strong> or simply for fun. <\/strong> Do not be surprised you will find plenty of these Negative SEO Services<\/strong> online easily.<\/p>\n And believe it or not, an unintentional Negative SEO<\/strong> attack can also happen. There are cases where family members, employees, or even hired SEO agencies deliberately<\/em> do obsolete Black Hat practices on behalf of the owner thinking it will help their website ranking.<\/p>\n Just like normal SEO, Negative SEO<\/strong> also have both on-page<\/u> as well off-page<\/u> aspect to it:<\/p>\n As the name implies, Negative Off-Page SEO<\/strong> attacks without<\/em> internally changing your website. Mostly it revolves around using Black Hat or negative SEO link building practices<\/a> and points them to the target website:<\/p>\n = Link farms<\/strong> are a series of web pages created for the sole purpose of linking to another page on the web.<\/p>\n Ordinarily, inbound links are a good thing that helps to improve your site\u2019s ranking\u2026 but if you have a lot of links coming in from the same unrelated, spammy websites, it tells Google that you are trying to artificially increase the number of links pointing to your page by creating link farms and you will get penalized.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a Negative SEO attack, malicious parties will create obvious link farms and heavily link to the target website.<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes they will also purchase link farm services or buy site-wide ads<\/a> to achieve the same effect. Since it\u2019s hard for Google to tell who\u2019s responsible for the links, it can lead to a Google penalty on the target site when detected.<\/p>\n = Copyright complaints<\/strong>\u00a0are a bit more complex, but at their core, they usually involve someone claiming that you\u2019ve posted material that belongs to them.<\/p>\n In many cases, this can result in the automatic removal of the page for\u00a0up to 10 days<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and wouldn\u2019t it be just\u00a0awful<\/em>\u00a0if your landing pages<\/a> vanished right in the middle of your biggest campaigns?<\/p>\n = Finally, competitors can\u00a0falsify duplicate content<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 basically just copying and pasting your web pages over and over, maybe even as part of those link farms we discussed above.<\/p>\n An influx of duplicated contents<\/a> across domains might signal a manipulation attempt to get multiple different websites ranking with the same content. This used to be a popular Black Hat SEO technique before Google started cracking down on it.<\/p>\n As you can see, there are many different ways for negative SEO techniques<\/strong> to be done to your website\u2026 but no matter how tempting they might be, you should never <\/em>even consider doing any of these yourself.<\/p>\n Even if it works in the short-term, it\u2019s not going to be effective forever\u2026 and could land you in serious<\/strong> legal trouble if anyone can prove you were behind it.<\/p>\n This form of attack is a little different and generally focuses on hacking into your site and changing things around.<\/strong> With as little as a few minutes to start messing with your setup, a hacker could easily disrupt your site\u2019s coding, introduce viruses, and generally wreak havoc on everything you\u2019ve tried to build.<\/p>\n The real threats are the ones that are hard to see, though, and consist of the following:<\/p>\n The good news, as we\u2019ll discuss later, is that on-page negative SEO attacks are much harder to perform\u2026 and much easier for a competent programming team to fix, too.<\/p>\n With all the stuff we\u2019ve talked about here, you might be worried that there\u2019s a rampant amount of negative SEO going on and you just haven\u2019t caught up to it yet.<\/p>\n Well\u2026 not exactly.<\/p>\n Google is quite good at detecting when negative SEO is occurring.<\/strong> For example, if someone\u2019s trying to do some Google Bowling and smash you over with site-wide links, there\u2019s a good chance that the link from that site will only be counted as one<\/em> vote from them \u2013 unlikely to do you any real harm.<\/p>\n Also, remember that while Google is actively hunting down Black Hat SEO<\/strong> practices, some might slip through for a while. This means that Negative SEO attempts won\u2019t guarantee a penalty from Google<\/strong> for the victim. Not only that, but it might also do the opposite and actually<\/em> help the target to rank better!<\/p>\n Similarly, hacking attempts are not that hard to avoid<\/strong> as long as you are using a robust system securing your site (make sure they are updated). Also, avoid using simple administrator passwords just because you think nobody is interested in ruining your humble site. You know what they say \u2013 better safe than sorry.<\/p>\n In general, Negative SEO can be costly<\/u>, takes a lot of effort, and is highly risky. The return, on the other hand, isn\u2019t even guaranteed and while it might work, it\u2019s quite easy to fix once the target realizes what is happening.<\/p>\n In short \u2013 Negative SEO is a high risk, low reward activity.<\/strong> Unless there\u2019s a very compelling reason (revenge maybe?<\/em>), it is quite unlikely for anyone to attempt on doing it.<\/p>\n The most likely websites to be targeted for SEO are those in highly-competitive, high-money fields<\/strong> \u2013 gambling sites are a common example of this. Sites that are in calmer niches are far less likely to be hit by negative SEO<\/strong> \u2013 indeed, anything that happens is more likely to be an accident or a remnant of an old advertising strategy instead of a deliberate attack on you.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean you should be complacent, though. Constant vigilance is the best way to protect your site and your reputation, so let\u2019s look at what you can do to help protect your site.<\/p>\n The first step in protecting your website is to detect any signs of attack<\/strong> such as a sudden drop in organic traffic. This is easy to notice if you are constantly monitoring your traffic through Google Analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also set up Google Webmaster Tools Email Alert<\/a>. This will allow Google to notify you through email if your website is not indexed<\/strong> or receive a manual penalty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t done anything wrong, that can mean that your website is under attack. The sooner you know, the faster you can react and minimize the damage.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s answer to Negative SEO is the Disavow tool.<\/strong> You can see the full process here<\/a> \u2013 what it comes down to, though, is basically saying \u201cI don\u2019t like or trust that link, please don\u2019t factor it into my rankings\u201d. By disavowing low-quality links, you avoid associating your website with them so that your ranking and reputation is protected.<\/p>\n Utilizing the Disavow tool also tells Google that you care about the quality of links pointing to your site. <\/strong>This will be taken into consideration when Google\u2019s Webspam Team is considering whether to penalize your site when they detect an influx of bad links pointing to it.<\/p>\n The Disavow tool is very useful against :<\/p>\n To look for these low-quality links, you can use BacklinkGap<\/a>. It\u2019s essentially a free backlink checker tool\u00a0that has the feature to add your unwanted backlinks into a disavow list<\/a>.<\/p>\n When you have added your links to the list, just export it in a CSV format and put the list into Google\u2019s Disavow tool.<\/p>\n Hackers generally require some sort of administrator access in order to mess around with your site, and by adding additional levels of security<\/a>, you can drastically reduce the odds that they\u2019ll be able to break in and start disrupting what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n This will help you stop:<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t tied to a particular problem, but you should regularly revise your SEO properties.<\/strong> This includes checking out your robot.txt once in a while or performing random checks on your contents\u2019 internal coding (headers, image alt tag, etc).<\/p>\n If you are using SEOPressor Connect<\/a>, checking SEO properties will be much easier<\/strong> as each content will have its SEOPressor score. If you regularly optimize your contents\u2019 SEO properties to get a high SEOPressor score, then you can easily spot the ones with a bad score and fix them.<\/p>\n It is always<\/em> better to be active and aggressive in searching for attacks on your site, rather than locking it up and expecting that nobody will be able to get in.<\/p>\n At the same time, you can use BiQ Rank Tracking<\/a><\/strong> to keep track of your website and keyword\u2019s rank to notice if there are any unexpected ranking shifts.\u00a0<\/p>\n This especially helps in case of a negative attack and you can be quickly alerted that there is a competitor out there trying to ruin your rankings and take fast actions to recover it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And though many often avoid rank tracking because it calls for a huge expense. But BiQ executes everything differently<\/a> because you only need to pay for the features that you use.<\/strong><\/p>\n It just charges you for the features you actively use for the times you actually use it<\/em>. That\u2019s way cheaper than hiring SEO agencies or using the regular SEO suites. <\/p>\n Moreover, BiQ offers a free tier available for any new account sign-ups<\/a><\/strong>!<\/a><\/p>\n Back to the topic at hand, make no mistake, but\u00a0negative SEO attacks are a real threat<\/strong>, not just a common one. And even though you can disavow links or report them to Google, it might take some time before Google can conclude that you are innocent and not the one who\u2019s behind the Black Hat practices.<\/p>\n It\u2019s better to be safe than sorry. Now that you know what is negative SEO<\/strong>, set aside some time every now and then to check for negative SEO<\/strong>, and if need be, resolve it using whichever technique is most appropriate. It is also a good idea to just be nice to others<\/strong> and avoid giving anyone any reason to attack you in the first place. After all, being nice is free.<\/p>\n Updated: 1 September 2022<\/p>\nWhat Is Negative SEO?<\/h2>\n
![\"What](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/how-negative-seo-works.jpg\")
But Why Would Anyone Commit A Negative SEO Attack?<\/h3>\n
Types Of Negative SEO Attack<\/h2>\n
Negative Off-Page SEO<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Link-Farm.jpg\")
![\"To](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Duplicate-Content.png\")
Negative On-Page SEO<\/h3>\n
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![\"changing](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/robots-allow-all.png\")
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The Likelihood of Negative SEO Attacks<\/h2>\n
![\"Negative](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/negative-seo-service.jpg\")
How To Protect Your Website Against Negative SEO<\/h2>\n
Detection<\/h3>\n
![\"you](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/google-penalty.jpg\")
Disavowing<\/h3>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Google-Disavow-Links-Tool.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/image.png\")
<\/figure>\nSecuring Your Administrator Login<\/h2>\n
![\"one](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/wordpress-security.png\")
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Revising SEO Settings<\/h3>\n
![\"Regularly](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Low-SEOPressor-Score.png\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/2020-11-03-12_24_53-Profile-Overview-Rank-Tracking-BiQ.png\"){kind=tracking}
<\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nFinal Thoughts<\/h2>\n
![\"Vivian\"\/](\"https:\/\/seopressor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Vivian-Foo.jpeg\")
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