So you have set up your
website and are proud of the work done to make it look good. You followed all the
rules set by the search engine companies to be ranked high. Usually, this is
done through proper SEO or Search Engine Optimization, usage. But not too long
down the road you noticed the website is just not getting the attention it used
to. It starts dropping in search rankings. Something smells fishy, so you get a
team of IT people to take a look at things. They do their investigation and
come back with some bad news. And that would be the website is victim to
negative SEO attacks.
Negative SEO, what in the
World is that?
Negative SEO, in a
nutshell, is when someone with malicious intent uses techniques to degrade a
websites search engine rankings. It uses a technique called “Black Hat SEO”,
which is a large field on its own, too big for the scope of this article.
Therefore, let’s just stick with the Negative SEO part of Black Hat. Negative
SEO is done with one specific goal in mind. To hurt a competitor’s rankings
whenever a search is done online. A common way this is done is by attaching a
large amount spam links to a website. When this is done to the website it will
affect the link profile, which in turn affects rankings. In worst case
scenarios, the website itself will be hacked to mess with the content, which
will of course mess with rankings.
Fighting the Pirates
So, what can one do to
counter negative SEO? Fortunately, there are ways to handle these problems. The
following are a few examples.
Auditing is Not Only for
the Taxman
Link audits are generally
a good habit to get into, regardless what the reason is. But in the context of
negative SEO, it can mean the difference between night and day. There are
graphs that can be used to keep an eye on the link profile growth or fall. The
great thing about graphs is that it gives you a visual reference, as opposed to
just some random numbers, that makes it very clear on what’s happening. The way
you can tell something is not right is when the graph shows a sudden rise or
fall as it travels along the X-axis, especially when you haven’t done any
tweaks or changes to the site. This is a sure sign that begs for close
attention.
The Need for Speed
One of the early
indicators that something is amiss is website speed. If you notice a change in
speed that is, a slower speed, then it is time to look under the hood. In extreme
cases, it will slow to a crawl and even crash before it takes off. When this
happens its time to contact the hosting company.
Lifting and Scraping
Content marketing is the
new go-to technique for digital marketing. Some will use a technique called “Scrapping”
which is the practice of lifting content straight from another person's website
and then putting on their own site. The best way to counter this is to check
for plagiarism and then report it to Google.
Fake Reviews can be
Devastating
After you have put up your
website, business starts to pick up. After some time, you notice there is a lot
of negative reviews. If it seems unusually large then you can tackle it by
using google maps and flagging the reviews and reporting it to Google.
