What is negative SEO?

 

·         Negative SEO is effectively the opposite of positive SEO. Instead of attempting to approve a site's search ranking, the aim of negative SEO is to demote a competing site, or even in some cases, have it completely removed from the search results.

 

·         There is tons of different negative SEO techniques people use, such as sending thousands of spam links, sending fake link removal requests, fake reviews, and so on, and so on.

 

However, regardless of the technique, I always get asked the same question, which is, is negative SEO effective?

 

·         Good question and a subject of much debate. It's clear you can harm your own site by using shady SEO tactics.

 

·         So it stands to reason that by employing the same techniques, you could also do similar damage to a competing website.

 

·         After all, how can Google tell who built all those spammy links?

·         The answer is yes, negative SEO does work if the attack is sophisticated enough. However, the good news is that 99% of negative SEO attacks are far from sophisticated, and all have a happy ending.

 

·         Generally speaking, rankings and traffic can be recovered to pre-attack levels as well. So how to spot a negative SEO attack, keyword being successful.

 

·         What we're looking for here are signs that someone has already succeeded in negatively affecting your rankings. The first thing to look out for is a drop in traffic.

 

·         If the aim of negative SEO is to reduce your search traffic, then clearly for an attack to be considered successful, it has to do just that.

 

·         So if you notice a sudden drop in your search traffic, then assuming you haven't been up to anything dodgy yourself, it could be a sign of a negative SEO attack.

 

·         There are two types of Google penalties, one being manual, and one being algorithmic.

 

·         You'll generally only be able to spot the latter by noticing a drop in traffic and rankings. But if the penalty is manual, you'll get a lovely little message from Google telling you that they've taken action against your site.