What is negative SEO?

Negative SEO is a deliberate attack on someone else’s website with the goal of making its rankings worse. While black hat SEO measures are meant to give your own site an unfair competitive advantage, negative SEO targets the rankings of the competition. It is a targeted attack on other web presences and it quickly moves beyond the boundaries of what is legally allowed.

Which methods are used in negative SEO?

• Hacking
• Bad neighborhood
• Google bombing
• Duplicate content
• Fake comments and reviews

How can you protect yourself against negative SEO?

Here are a few tips for protecting yourself against negative SEO measures:

• Turn on the notifications in Google Search Console so that you notice anything unusual quickly.
• Set up automated reporting so that you can react quickly.
• Keep an eye on the backlinks pointing to your site in Search Console.
• Check metrics such as the MOZ Spam Score regularly. If the value climbs sharply, review your backlinks in Search Console.
• Have backlinks from dubious sites removed. If that is not possible, use Google’s Disavow tool to block those backlinks.
• Check your site for duplicate content regularly.
• Check your Google reviews for dubious comments or fake ratings meant to damage your reputation.

Sudden shifts in your backlink profile are one of the standard checkpoints in an SEO audit, which is where an attack usually becomes visible first.

Want to know more about protecting yourself against negative SEO? Our podcast episode on the topic goes into it, and you will find more terms on the subject in the SEO glossary.