Negative SEO | What to Look for, and How it Works

Negative SEO occurs when a person or persons take actions intended to cause a "negative" affect on a websites SERP (Search Engine Results Position) and PR (PageRank). I have for some time suspected something like this is possible. Matt Cutts affirmed this in the following statement:

"We try to be mindful of when a technique can be abused and make our algorithm robust against it," he says. "I won't go out on a limb and say it's impossible. But Google bowling is much more inviting as an idea than it is in practice."

Negative SEO can be committed in many ways mentioned in the 6/28/07 Forbes Magazine article detailing the practice. There are also many more subtle things that can be perpetrated against websites to negatively affect their position.

1. Google Bowling: Is when a saboteur uses Google's guidelines to set up a a website. An example of this is propagation of thousands of backlinks in a short period of time pointing at a site, which would call the Google spam script into action.
2. Tattling: This is when a saboteur reports a site to Google for paid links or spam. This can take some time to work, and requires proof. So, if you are following the guidelines you have no worries.
3. Google Insulation: This one's ethical issues are debatable. Google Insulation is the process of boosting sites that speak well to a site or it's products, which CAN build up the site's reputation and SERP.....and move other like competitors by flooding the page one, top 10 results.
4. Copyright Takedown Notices: This is a really dirty tactic, that can come back and bite the saboteur. A copyright infringement notice is sent to Google about a site, forcing Google to de-index and investigate. False reports can land the reporter in court, however.
5. Copying Content: This has happened to me. A site copies your content then reproduces it fully or partially on the web, enough to cause a duplication flag. The issue is....even if you had the content first if the other site has a higher PR yours will most likely be placed in the supplemental as the result of duplication. Then you are forced to send in the Copyright infringement report to Google. Google needs to fix this!
   Commenter Edit 7/24/07:
   

   Jonathan Bailey said...
   One thing worth noting. If you have someone take your work, not only would you be required to file a full DMCA Notice with Google, but it would probably be more effective to file a complaint with the host and get the entire site removed. But, as you said, use it with caution. Using it for the wrong reasons can wind up hurting you...

6. Denial of Service: This is a very "old" technique. In this case the saboteur will simply 'ping', crawl, or send so many requests to a site that it malfunctions, or even crashes. Shared hosting sites are in great danger here, many times the hosting provider will shut down the site for pulling too much "juice" in the shared hosting environment.
7. Click Fraud: The sites Ads are targeted with "clicks", causing the Ad budget to rise. This can even be accomplished with software on an extreme level.

I think we have to be vigilant in watching our sites and trends, but in reality others will do as they please we can only respond.

Peace and SEO

Baby



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