What is Negative SEO?

In any market, competition exists, and it also applies to search engine optimization (SEO). Successful companies promote their websites through optimization, impeccable reputation, and unique content. However, competitors can undermine all this effort, which is precisely what is referred to as negative SEO.

Backlinks in Negative SEO

Previously, for promotion, a sufficient number of backlinks was utilized. Now, such tricks no longer work, especially with numerous offers for mass purchase of backlinks available so far.

Link Explosion and How to Create It

A huge number of low-quality backlinks can significantly affect a company’s reputation. After this, a site may fall under the filters of search engines, and its positioning can deteriorate significantly. Furthermore, a web resource can be subjected to sanctions or blocked.

To create such a link explosion, you will not necessarily need to seek out a separate specialist. This can be done independently with the help of thematic services. One such service is Fiverr, where for as little as $5, you can eliminate your competitor. In the search query for this service, you can introduce “backlinks” and receive offers for creating low-quality backlinks to your site.

How to Understand That Your Site is Undergoing a Link Attack

You can control the quantity of backlinks using the following services:

• Google for webmasters;
• Ahrefs;
• Serpstat;
• Any other services for backlink analysis.

A warning sign will be a sharp increase in the number of backlinks. Also, verify where the links are coming from: if they are spammy and originate from low-authority sources, you may become a victim of unscrupulous competitors.

How to Prevent a Link Explosion or Protect Yourself Against It

Preventing a link explosion is impossible, but if you regularly check your backlinks, you can identify them before the search engine starts to consider them. To protect yourself from unwanted backlinks, you can use Google’s Disavow Links tool, which allows you to manually exclude links.

Other Ways Competitors Can Cause Harm

Negative SEO is not only about a link explosion; it also includes other competitor actions that can lower your site’s positioning in search results. The most common type of attack is low-quality link building.

Hacking

When hackers find a vulnerability on your web resource, they begin to manipulate it directly. They can cause your site not to be indexed by gaining access to robots.txt.

This is why you need to continually create backup copies of your files and monitor for any external harmful codes; if you detect any, they should be removed immediately. In the case that your site is compromised, you should strive to restore access as quickly as possible.

Theft of Your Content

There are cases when a competitor’s site outranks yours due to the indexed content coming from your web resource. In such situations, the authorship of the content will be attributed to the first company, while the position of the second site will drop due to duplication issues.

To protect yourself from this, make sure to include rel=”author” (rel=”publisher”) and rel=canonical tags during the content publication phase. This way, the search engine can understand that you are the original creator and improve your positioning in the results.

Purchased Reviews

Sometimes, most companies receive negative reviews, including about their competitors. However, currently, the focus is shifting towards positive comments.

Excessively positive reviews can look out of place in your marketing strategy. On a page, there should be at least some neutral comments; otherwise, reviews may appear as if they are manipulated by bots. This threatens your company with a spoiled reputation that can be challenging to improve.

Violation of Copyright

Sometimes SEO specialists, wishing to get rid of competitors, look for quality links and ask the donor sites to delete them for copyright infringement. When a webmaster removes them, you lose valuable backlinking mass.

This is why it is crucial to periodically check your backlinks and if they disappear, get in touch with the donor site and attempt to restore them. You can also use an electronic address with your domain and only correspond with it using various emails from the company.

DDoS Attack

This method does not relate directly to negative SEO, but it is one of the easiest and therefore often used. In such an attack, competitors overload your site with a greater number of requests, and it becomes inaccessible for regular users.

Identifying the source of the attack is extremely challenging. This issue has not been excluded even among the largest companies. However, you can protect your site from DDoS attacks by only utilizing high-quality servers without various vulnerabilities.

In Conclusion

You will find it easier to protect your site from unexpected attacks if you at least know about them. After you learn more about this topic in detail, you will be able to quickly notice signs of negative SEO during regular checks.

It should also be noted that the most frequent victims of negative SEO are casino sites, bookmarking companies, and others in this sector. Therefore, if your company offers other services, you should not be overly concerned about constant attacks.