Search Engine De-Optimization May Be a Real Threat to Your Site
If you run a website, you need to know about the newest black hat search engine optimization tactic: negative SEO. Most people are familiar with SEO as a tool to boost a website’s search engine ranking through keyword content, quality linkbacks and positive social media feedback. However, a study done by TastyPlacement showed that with less than $50, they could drop their one of their own website’s Google rank.
The results showed that the company was able to lower their search engine ranking from #3 to #14; they also took the website from page one to page two for a keyword search result. This was accomplished by using a slew of junk links against the site. Using thousands of forum profiles, blog comments and trash sidebar links, they were able to dramatically lower their website’s Google ranking. Even worse, this was done for a very low cost.
You may be wondering why anyone would want to do this to their own website. The truth is that no one would want to purposely damage their website’s search engine ranking. However, in the highly competitive search engine ranking arena, people may consider doing this to competitor’s websites. While major companies could probably recover fairly easily from this type of onslaught, most small businesses would have problems combating this type of NSEO tactic.
Original study & infographic by TastyPlacement, an Austin SEO company.
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6 Responses to “Search Engine De-Optimization May Be a Real Threat to Your Site”
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agree , we need to know about the newest black hat search engine optimization tactic: negative SEO simply to avoid it
These result truly showed how much insecure a website search ranking is .
Yes for sure we must keep our selves updates with the google algos , so that it dint hurt our site .
This is why it’s so important to keep an eye on analytics and webmaster tools and generate link reports. Unfortunately you don’t have full control over your website. It’s important to know what’s going on in order to control an issue before it gets out of hand.
that is crazy! one argument for too many links being a bad thing used to be, if too many links would hurt a site then everyone would just point thousands of junk links at their competitor’s site until it were de-indexed.
your test results are a little scary but raise a few questions about the site… was it a new site? did it recover the next day or week (google dance)?
anyway, thanks for posting
I’ve heard of companies obtaining inbound backlinks to competitor websites from high-threat websites and porn sites to hurt their reputation. People are shady.