More Strategies to Safe-Guard Your Site From Negative SEO

The term Negative SEO is not a new one in the field of SEO, but from the initial period spammers are practicing the same. If a site is unable to reach at the top, than it will be easy to bring down others i.e. competitor sites, to be at the top of the ranking. Google is still updating its algorithm to stop such corrupt practices, but when there will be more rules, there will be more ways to exploit them. There were several strategies made by Google and the spammers. When Google started to demoralize the sites which have low quality links, spammers started to purchase links at high bid and when Google stressed upon user reviews, spammers started to utilize the way of making millions of fake reviews. But still Google has the opinion that no spammer or competitor can harm one’s ranking as Google algorithm has been updated. At the earlier stage of SEO, Google was not so sure that it can do it, but now Google thinks that it is possible to make such effort to stop completely the spammers. • Know about Negative SEO: - In the field of SERP real estate, there are limited strategies, like if you win, and then there is someone who has lost. The idea behind negative SEO is very simple. You have to do enough harm to your competitor sites, they will certainly be down and you will be at the top. Nowadays except proper SEO, negative SEO has become more popular. Though Google is trying its best to control the situation the picture is widening day by day. There are several tricks of negative SEO and you must know them to protect your site from such hidden threats. 1. Duplicate Content: - it was quite earlier that spammers started content scraping from other especially competitors’ sites which are at the top and by republishing them anywhere else bring the duplicity issue. In such cases the original publishers are generally punished in some cases. Earlier there was Google panda, after that Google has launched Penguin. This update was made in February 2011 to grab the duplicate content issue. 2. Reputation Spam: - This is another issue to damage a popular brand or service. Spammers usually engage themselves to launch negative reviews and comments. The popular and top ranked brands can experience a worst affect through this. Google and other search engines use the reviews in the ranking algorithm and such bad reviews can harm a popular brands reputation quite easily. 3. Technical Spam: - There are numerous technical issues through which spammers can target you. These are like malware, security breaches, evil bots and many more. You should have to be aware of such issues that no one cannot harm your site using these technical platforms. 4. Link Spam: - This was the most common trick to bring drawback for a site. After launching of Penguin the situation has been quietly controlled. The trick is that there should be uncountable low quality links or spammy links and a reputed site may experience a lower rank. Google has updated its algorithm to alert the sites that have such spammy links. You have to aware while link building and the bad kinks should be checked well very frequently. • Is it Possible to Operate A Negative SEO :- There was a time when such operation like negative SEO was possible, but now with the regular updates of Penguin, It is highly doubted that a site can be demoralized using such tricks. Especially through using spammy links it is quite impossible in 2015 to threat a site’s ranking. The same thing is with content duplicity. It is a very debatable issue. Google is updating its algorithm at the highest possible measures. It is quite impossible to think about negative SEO, but the site owners should have to alert about such hidden threats. Some of the clients have reported that they have experienced negative SEO regarding non SEO server attacks and click through rate spam. Generally, these types of cases are rare, but one should know about all the possibilities. At present the most common target for spammers is CTR as it has the highest co relation with higher ranking. These aspects are quite confusing to look for as most of the UX signals are virtually undetectable. • Several Shields for Negative SEO Protection: - However Google has updated its algorithm; there are several measures to be taken by the webmasters and business owners. 1. Content duplicity: - You have to make a cat’s eye on the contents that no one is stealing your content. In this concern I may suggest you the tool copysacpe, that will allow you to check if your contents are stolen or not. If there is any content copied from your site, you may inform the site owner about the matter. If no steps are taken, you may adopt for legal steps as a original publisher. Moreover Google has now enough capacity to track such duplicate contents. The risk of being threatened has been reduced by Google alerts. This system is always active and whenever it finds content change or any significant match on the web, it sends alerts to the user for a check. Basically it is a content detection service. 2. Reputation Spam: - Many jealous competitors should take the steps of negative reviews to make you down. To keep the matter you may use the tool namely Social Mention. Otherwise you may contact the reviewer to remove such negative sense from the respective sites. In case of Yelp the task will be quite hard as Yelp is quite strict of removing such reviews. 3. Technical Spam: - You have to better optimize the on page SEO like page loading speed, CTR, time on site, bounce rates, pages per session, etc. You have to secure the CMS system and if anyone has access into the same he/she may change the scenario. Moreover the technical aspects should be checked frequently. There are several tools like Google analytics or Pingdom for the process. 4. Link Building: - There should be a regular check on back link profile. Google disavow tool is always alert to send you notification about such spammy back links. There are some other tools like MonitorBacklinks.com, which will send notification for the new back links. In this concern you have to know that all the suspicious links are not spammy and you may tell Google about the same. • Conclusion: - Negative SEO has become quite difficult detect as there are also some new tactics and strategies. Moreover the website owners and developers are to be alert always regarding the mentioned aspect. What do you think about negative SEO? I am eager to learn your responses. Leave your comments for more discussion.

By Professional qualification a Computer Engineer, By Profession an Online Marketing Strategist and Web Application Development Expert, By Industry position working as a CEO at Zebra Techies Solution!

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