Negative SEO: Chapter Two!
Well my post last Friday obviously hit some SMB nerves…as we’ ve fielded questions from clients, from SEO peers, from friends and just about every type of forum/blog comment links that linked to our original last Friday post found here.
Negative SEO exists. Works. And can be used against you and your sites.
There…I said it out loud once more…and what I will do now is to recap some of the followups for all SMBs to read and learn….staying “on top” of Google et al is not a chore that anyone likes…but the impact it appears from negative SEO is still new to many….and that’s perhaps one of the largest issues with same.
Negative SEO, as I originally blogged about, is “a simple set of tactics that anyone can use to change – for the worse mind you – the rankings of any site. Your own. Your competitors. Even a site you’ve never ever visited….negative SEO is a way to make changes to that site….changes to the rankings of same.”
A quick read of my original blog posting will show that yes, there are methods to at least “find” out if your site has been hit with a negative SEO campaign….and yes, Google will eventually make functional the tool to help anyone who suffers from same, report that negative SEO campaign and “right the wrongs” that occured. Least that’s their story….but I do believe that this will happen.
In the meantime, the outpourings of items on the web both about negative SEO and what you should know about same and do to try to combat same are plentiful…and here’s a few that I think you should know about for sure!
Cygnus (Joe Sinkwitz found here) is a blogger over at Aaron’s SEOBook site….and his posting on negative SEO can be found here. As he puts it, negative SEO exists, can be done for not too many dollars, and as he puts it near the end of this post “if a jerk wants to take you down, it can happen. If your niches begin to look like the wasteland I described above where I shared my thoughts a little too freely, then heaven help you because it doesn’t look like Google is going to…” As you can see, he puts little faith into Google helping out those inflicted by negative SEO….can’t say as yet I agree with him…but wanted you to get his views on same, eh!
Dr. Pete over at SEOmoz.com voices here, his own thoughts on negative SEO and asks if you were hit by same. One comment to remember from the good Dr. is this one “If someone really is out to get you and wants to spend the time and money, there’s no doubt they can do a lot of damage…” As Pete says, they can do damage. You’d best be aware of how to monitor same and what you can “do” about it. This is a great blog piece from Rand’s SEOmoz…and well worth the click, eh!
Jason Acidre is Co-Founder and CEO of Xight Interactive, and his post here on How to Protect Against Negative SEO is a great way to end this today. His blog piece outlines a great strategy to help you monitor your site, find out using analytics what kind of damage has been done and then how you can protect your site from the get-go. Pretty good stuff here, Jason…and I like especially the list of tools you’ve placed in the post too!
So there you have it today….the top 3 items that I wanted to point out, can help you monitor and yes, even protect your site – even after an attack – from negative SEO. It’s out there….so forewarned is forearmed, eh!
UPDATE: Just found Kate Morris’s post (of Distilled in Seattle) here that has her 5 Easy Steps to ID Negative SEO and Prevent It! and that too is well worth the click!
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Negative SEO: Chapter Two!…
Well my post last Friday obviously hit some SMB nerves…as we’ ve fielded questions from clients, from SEO peers, from friends and just about every type of forum/blog comment links that linked to our original last Friday post found here. Negative SEO ex…