Is your company’s site fending off endless attacks on the search engine optimization it has in place? Negative SEO involves various harmful practices that unethical players will use to move their site ahead of yours in the ranking on a search page.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to identify a negative SEO attack and stage a defense. You can also protect your website with rock-solid SEO services in NJ from experts like Peppermonkey Media.
What Is Negative SEO and How Does It Impact Successful Websites?
Search engine optimization is a highly effective digital marketing tactic. Efficient SEO moves your company website up the rankings in search engines, drawing more traffic to your website’s products or services. However, there is an evil underbelly to SEO that many people are blissfully unaware of, and it involves direct hits from ill-intentioned players.
The online market is competitive, and your competitors want to corner it. If they aren’t drawing in organic traffic like you are, they’ll need to up their game. Unfortunately, competitive business tactics in this climate are hardly ever outward or obvious.
A trader running a produce stand could loudly proclaim to the neighborhood that a competitor selling fruit down the road had rotten apples or rancid pears. Today, the anonymity of a screen makes these mud-slinging tactics more covert.
That’s why a negative SEO attack could effectively help competitors gain an online advantage over your business’s website ranking by tearing down your company’s reputation or products. They might attach your brand to poor feedback or bad reviews. They’ll also mention you in connection with unfavorable products, people, or places if it gets them the results they want.
Types of Negative SEO Attacks
If you want to be on your guard, take note of the following common negative SEO tactics that could be bringing your site down a notch on the search engine results pages:
Terrible Reviews
One of the most prevalent forms of negative SEO comes from intentionally bad reviews. A competitor may leave a poor review on some independent platform. However, in the most egregious cases, they’ll leave them directly on your site.
Negative SEO reviews appear as wordy, exaggerated stories of “bad service” or “a faulty product.” These reviews will be under fake names, so there will be no way to contact them.
By fabricating these reviews, your competitor aims to lower your ratings on popular search engines when the algorithms associate your site with a poor customer experience.
Spammy Links
Another popular approach for those deep in the trenches of negative SEO is the spammy link, mainly on websites that allow comments. Your competitors will leave anonymous comments with bad links that attach you to non-credible sites or worse.
This practice creates backlinks that taint your website by association in the eyes of a search engine.
Scraping Content
A particularly heinous SEO attack is the art of scraping content. For example, a competitor might pull portions of your well-ranked content from blogs or landing pages. They’ll then change it ever so slightly before posting this spun content on their own site.
This practice makes it look like your quality content is theirs, which confuses the search engines and lowers your site’s ranking.
Protecting Your Site From Negative SEO: 7 Tips
Digital marketing in the post-pandemic world feels very different. The surge in remote work has admitted new players into the SEO arena. There is also a larger focus on social media marketing, as many people purchase products this way.
So, how can your website set itself apart while fending off any negative SEO attack with ease? Take a look at the following tips to protect your site from slimy competition tactics:
#1 Use Backlink Monitoring Tools
Backlink monitoring tools prevent negative SEO and spam from having any impact on your site. These tools filter out bad links and alert you to spammy comments before they do any damage.
#2 Watch For Unusual Traffic Spikes
Unusual spikes in site traffic can indicate something is awry. When you notice a change, look into the source. Is it coming from a spam comment or a negative review?
#3 Examine Anchor Texts to Bad Links
Another tip for targeting negative SEO is to look at the anchor links in your comments, reviews, and other mentions. Tools like Ahrefs can reveal who is linking back to your site and what the anchor text is for these backlinks. If it’s shady companies or non-credible resources, you’ll have time to address anything you don’t want your company associated with.
#4 Be On the Lookout For Content Scraping
Content scraping is a negative SEO attack and blatant plagiarism. Have other sites stolen your unique content? Report the offender to the search engine then and there.
#5 Take On Spammy Backlinking and Disavow It
Spam links can bog down the success of any website. To combat this, you can compile a list of all the spammy backlinks and publicly disavow them after removing them from your website.
#6 Report Any Web Spamming
Have you singled out bad links and dealt with them? Go directly to the search engines, report these sites and domains, and ensure the search engine flags them as spam in the future.
#7 Only Allow Reviews From Verified Customers or Clients
Whether you’re a blogger, a small business owner, or a corporate service provider, you want to allow honest and open feedback on your website. However, fake negative reviews from shady competitors are disingenuous, so it pays to take some steps to protect your site.
Why not create a system that only allows verified customers or clients to leave testimonials on the site? It won’t apply to third-party review sites, but it’s a start.
Safeguarding Your Site With SEO Professionals | Peppermonkey Media
Has your site fallen victim to a negative SEO attack? It may be time to invest in SEO marketing services to optimize your site’s content and quell these negative attacks.
To find out more or request a free quote, contact Peppermonkey Media online or call 888-231-9764 today!
