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Ranking higher in search engine result pages (SERP) is becoming increasingly complex, and this is because search engines like Google are constantly changing their algorithms.
As a result, all digital marketers are continuously changing their SEO strategies. Black Hat Techniques have become less effective, along with new algorithm updates. All these incidents led to the establishment of new dark techniques to rank higher, called “negative SEO.”
In this article, we will learn what negative SEO is and the precautions you can take to protect your website from it.
This guide is beneficial if your primary traffic source is Search Engines. It will teach you how to optimize your site effectively for search engines.
Many marketers are already victims of dangerous consequences. If you want to avoid being one, check out our handy guide.
What is negative SEO?
First, dig deeper and understand the “negative SEO” phenomenon and how it works. Negative SEO is one form of Black Hat SEO, in which people use Dark Techniques to disturb their competitor’s ranking.
Negative SEO attacks use several practices.
- Hacking your website through different methods.
- Making spammy links to your website.
- Content scraping is known as content copying – Manually or Auto (by RSS Feed)
- Redirecting links to your website containing inappropriate keywords. (ex. Adult, Casino, Drugs, etc.)
- Creating Fake Social Profiles on various Platforms & destroying your reputation in many ways.
- Replacing your best backlinks with their websites.
If an attacker gains access to your website, they can do much damage. This is very uncommon, though. In this guide, we will study other methods of negative SEO.
These are practiced externally and do not affect your website directly. The negative results can only be seen in the decrease in your keyword ranking.
Is Negative SEO a Real Threat?
Yes, these practices are honest, and many marketers have faced problems. However, to keep your website safe from “negative SEO attackers,” you must take some precautions.
Now that we know about “negative SEO” methods and effects, let’s look at Ways to Protect Your Website from Negative SEO.
If you search for “negative SEO” on platforms like Fiverr or Seo Clerks, you will find many services starting from $5. It’s hard to believe they are making over 200K backlinks for just $5 and no time.
These backlinks will all be from spammy websites, and you will get them in bulk. This will look unnatural, and search engines will treat them as spam backlinks.
Their website may temporarily gain a higher ranking in search engines, but after the update, it will surely vanish from the results.
Many people post about the success of their negative SEO attacks in black hat forums. Also, more than 15,000 people are providing this service on Fiverr, which is widespread. Why else would people offer a service that has no demand?
Google created the Disavow Tool in Webmaster to help you solve this problem. However, using it at the last minute would be best. This tool enables you to remove unwanted backlinks, but you will lose your ranking if you misuse it.
How to Prevent Your Website from Negative SEO Attacks?
Secure Your Website from Hackers
The security of your website is critical. Prevention is better than cure. To avoid getting significant effects on your website by hackers, you must follow these essential things.
- You can use the Google Authenticator Plugin to activate a 2-step verification password on your website. The plugin will send an OTP to your phone whenever you Log in to WordPress.
- Use Strong Passwords containing Upper & Lower Case Numbers and Special Characters.
- Create backups of your files and database regularly.
Set up Google Webmaster Tools Email Alerts
You must set up email alerts for Google webmaster tools. This will alert you if:
- Your website is affected by malware.
- Server connectivity problems. (Server Down)
- When your pages are not getting indexed.
- Alerts for a manual penalty from Google.
If you have not set up Google Webmaster Tools Email Alerts already then follow these steps:
- Login to your webmaster tool.
- Follow this link: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/preferences
- Enable email notifications & Save it for all notifications.
Now, the Google Webmaster Tool will notify you of all manual actions needed to fix issues on your website. Fix all the problems immediately so they don’t disturb your ranking.
Protect Your Best Backlinks
Only a few attackers use this method, which deals the most significant damage. If your website ranking depends mostly on backlinks, what will happen if you lose your best backlinks?
Your website will also lose ranking in search results, but you can avoid this by taking simple precautions.
- Whenever you communicate with webmasters, you should use the official email address associated with your domain. Your email should look like this: “yourname@yourdomain.com.”
This will verify your ownership and look decent, too. Avoid using email from Yahoo or Gmail for professional work. This is necessary so attackers don’t contact them to remove your backlink pretending to be you.
- Always keep track of your best backlinks. For this task, you can use various tools, like Ahrefs. These tools will notify you if any of your backlinks are removed, and you can ask them to add your link again.
How to Recover Your Website from Negative SEO?
In this section, we will study how you can recover your website from damage caused by “negative SEO”. You should always keep your eye on your backlinks, and if you notice something unusual, then here’s what you have to do:
Create a List of Bad Links
The first step is to list all the wrong links to your website. You must then manually check each website and decide which backlinks affect your website’s ranking.
Create this list of all the links you receive through email alerts. You can also check existing backlinks to confirm that they are valid.
Remove the Bad Links
Not all wrong links are created by attackers. Some can also be produced naturally. You can use Whois.com/whois to find the site admin’s contact details to remove backlinks.
Ask them to remove the link to your website. But remember that this is only recommended if the links are better. Otherwise, you will lose ranking in search results.
If your site is being attacked by negative SEO, use the Google Disavow Tool. This webmaster tool will help you remove all wrong links.
You can upload the Bad Backlinks File you created. The Webmaster will remove all those links in no time. Although these links will still appear, the webmaster will not count them.
Conclusion
Website security and backlink profiles are the most critical factors for any company. Above, we shared all the significant precautions that will help you protect your website from negative SEO. We hope you found our guide helpful.
What are your strategies to prevent damage from negative SEO? Which tools are you using to check your site backlinks and stats? Have you experienced such attacks on your website? Let us know in the comment section.
About the Author: Stanley Emakpor is the founder of MyBloggingHelp. He is a digital marketer and a passionate blogger who loves exploring and sharing what he learns about blogging.