seo

 Article 1 

What is Negative SEO, and how to detect it? 

Still unsure about the term negative SEO? You have ever heard about Search Engine Optimization as SEO is essential to reach your site on top search results. But there also exists another type of SEO named Negative SEO, which is a real threat. In the past, it was easy to rank on competitive keywords, but now it has become challenging due to blackHat SEO. 

If you are sincere with your business and want to rank it on Google Search results, you must avoid blackHat SEO. Fortunately! Here, you're going to know all the exact information about Negative SEO and a complete guide on Securing your website from Negative SEO. Keep reading! 

What is Negative SEO? 

Negative SEO refers to using some malicious methods to rank your site on Google's first page. Yes, these methods were effective, but not now as before because they're penalized by Google. Those websites that are penalized by Google don't take time to the dropdown. Therefore, we recommend you ever not choose harmful SEO methods for ranking your website. 

Types of Negative SEO 

There are a lot of tactics through which negative SEO is performed. You will wonder how they work and drop website ranking to very low after few excellent results. Who wants to be penalized by  Google for a whole month? No one! So, if you want to detect negative SEO of your site, then don't ignore this post; read it thoroughly! 

1. Link Farm 

In the past, this type was prevalent as it involved internal linking of two or more websites. For example, there are three sites, A, B, and C. When they do interlinking, A gives a link to B & C, and the same for others as B gives a link to A and C. Such a type of fake interlinking is called link farming. 

Google launched the Penguin strategy for those who buy negative SEO tactics, but this tool detects Link Farming. The site is manipulated with such a type of interlinking; Google penalizes this site for one month. Try to avoid it and be honest in your matters. 

2. Scrapper 

Scrapper is a technique to steal your site's content and create duplicate content on different websites. When Google detects plagiarized content on different sites, it's possible for your site to de-rank within a few days. To avoid this issue, check your website's content with a plagiarism checker tool named Copyscape, which will show duplicate content along with source links of sites where spammers have published your content. 

3. Fake Reviews 

Posting fake reviews, either good or bad, is against Google policies. Some jealous competitors leave negative reviews on your site; it will affect your business but not directly affect your SEO performance. 

4. Heavy Crawling 

It's another type of negative SEO which may load your site. As a result, your site's loading speed will slow down. In that case, you should contact the host company to recommend a suitable treatment for this issue. Sometimes, the speed slows due to some viruses attacking the site. 

5. Hacking and Malware 

Some hackers access websites and change settings like changing the robot.txt files to remove the site from search visibility. Plus, they also install some malware on your sites. If spammers hack or attack the SEO of your site, Google drops your site on Google Search Engine. To prevent any hacking, you must create a strong password such as capital, small and unique letters, and numbers. Also, set a 2-step verification method to get notified on Login of your WordPress site. 

How to detect Negative SEO? 

Yes, I will tell you it's possible to detect these blackHat tactics by using different tools. 

• Google Webmasters 

It usually detects malicious activities on your site and alerts the web owner. 

• Monitor Backlinks 

You can use this tool to check out the backlinks of your site and your competitor's site. Plus, it also gives information about keyword ranking on Google. 

• Cognitive SEO 

This tool analyzes spam links on-site and helps you to remove these unnecessary or harmful backlinks. 

• Google Alert 

This tool alerts you about the latest events related to your business to create original content. Plus, you'll get notifications when your site name is used anywhere. 

• SEMrush

One of the best and most popular tools has many SEO tools and includes a risk detecting feature that detects negative SEO. It detects all toxic links and sends them to Google disavow for maintaining SEO rank performance. 

• MOZ

It explores all links on-site and gives a spam score for a given site. 

• Ahref 

It's a premium tool that performs analysis, monitors your domain, and detects competitor's website or SEO scores. Try Ahref negative SEO analytics to protect your site.

• Open link Profiler 

Through this tool, you can analyze all kinds of links, including wrong links on your site. 

• SEOptimer 

This tool allows you to audit your site in terms of SEO. Plus, You'll get different aspects and recommendations about your site's SEO through it. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

1. Is doing negative SEO legal? 

As negative SEO is not a criminal offense, police may attempt to prosecute it under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. This act is usually applied to distributed denial of service attacks. No doubt, negative SEO involves unauthorized acts such as creating spammy backlinks. If you're penalized by Google, you'll come to the list of victim's websites by Google. Avoid reaching your site's victim listing record of Google, which may cause a legal threat for you in the future. 

2. Is negative SEO a real threat? 

Absolutely Yes! Negative SEO is a harmful threat, and a lot of websites are dealing with this threat. It's not easy to fix it, but prevention from negative SEO is feasible. Many people have succeeded by using BlackHat techniques, but Google launched Disavow tool to assist web admins in avoiding this problem. This tool takes 2 to 4 weeks to fix negative SEO issues.

3. How to prevent my site from Negative SEO? 

There are many methods to fix or prevent negative SEO, such as connecting your WordPress site with different bad backlink checker tools to check and remove them. And, you may check duplicate content via the Copyscape tool and ask Google disavow not to de-rank your site. Use different SEO analytical tools to analyze your SEO score and follow their recommendation to avoid negative SEO. 

Learn more about How to protect your site from Negative SEO [You can insert link of 2nd article in this line] 

Final thoughts 

The central theme of writing this article is to explore your minds with a real threat for your websites, especially business websites. Awareness about any threat is essential! That's why we share an ultimate guide on this topic. Thus, we highly recommend you to know about Negative SEO and avoid it to secure a site. Use recommended tools and Stay safe with your business! 

Article 2 

How to protect your site from Negative SEO? 

Is your site suffering from negative SEO? Stay here to know the ultimate guide on negative SEO and get solutions to prevent it. Search Engine Optimization is a way to rank a website on Google Search Engine that requires proper keyword search, content management, on-site, campaign, and social strategy. But it may take a good time for the page to rank and to approach the targeted audience. 

Unsurprisingly, few bad apples prefer shortcuts to knock down honest competitors. In other words, they use Negative SEO methods to prevent strenuous efforts and investment in the development of the website. As a result, their sites rank but not for a long time. 

Yes! Crime is good until it's detected. Similarly, Negative SEO was popular and working effectively until Google Algorithms did not detect it. So, if your site is also involved in Negative SEO, explore this article to get the perfect solution for your site and prevent it from dropping down on Search Results. Let's start! 

What is negative SEO? 

Negative SEO is also called BlackHat SEO that implies using vicious tactics to sabotage competitors' rankings in Search Engines. At the start, negative SEO was as simple as seizing your site with banner ads, but now, it has become more complex and arduous. Negative SEO works in different forms. 

Different Negative SEO methods

Hackers and crackers invented different forms of Negative SEO described below. Whatever the form of negative SEO, once Google Algorithms detect it, no BlackHat source will resolve your problem, and your site will drop down and never rank again. See different forms of Negative SEO from where you've taken refuge. 

• Website Hacking 

Hacking a website is a valuable and expensive tactic, but it affects SEO performance. In this method, hackers attack the website's performance however they want, losing search engine sight. 

• Create Toxic backlinks 

Another tactic is to create spammy toxic backlinks through spammy anchor texts. Different softwares like PBNs, Link Farms, and Automated software are used to create toxic links. These wrong links may be created from a few to thousands in numbers from these softwares, but they also go against honest SEO and come under harmful SEO types. 

• Duplicate Website Creation 

It's also one of spam tactics to scrap a website's content and build a new website precisely similar to a competitor's website. Stealing part of another web site's content, etc., comes under the category of Negative SEO. 

• Posting Fake Reviews 

Some people post negative fake reviews about websites and ruin websites' reputations, which leads to traffic drops. Spammers create fake Facebook and post low-quality content to disgrace the reputation of the company. 

• Send fake Backlink removal requests. 

Some spammers target the backline profiles of web admins and send fake requests to remove Backlinks from their site. In this way, you'll trust these spammy requests and remove essential backlinks. As a result, your search engine visibility drops. 

• De-indexing 

The de-indexing method is to change the robot.txt file from the server. As a result, your site will be removed from the search. 

• Click Fraud

CTR bot discovers site's main keywords and clicks on listing to quickly back to search engine request page.  

• Adding Malware 

If your site is attacked by malware, Google alerts you by a notification that your site may be hacked. After that, it may reduce your SEO score. 

Actions against Negative SEO

Although negative SEO is harmful to your website related to ranking on Google, it's debatable. Let's move towards the best solutions for removing negative SEO tactics from your site. 

1. Enable Google Webmaster Tool notification

If you want to tackle negative SEO, you've to sign up on the Google Webmaster tool. When your website faces any problem or is attacked by any malware, Google Webmaster Tool will send you an alert Email for any issue related to Negative SEO. 

After signing up, log in to Webmaster Tool and press "Webmaster tools preference" to enable email notifications. After that, click on "receive alerts for all types of issues" and save it. 

2. Track backlinks profile 

It's a very significant action to prevent your website from spammers. They create low-quality backlinks and redirects to your site but if you want to be alert from these bad backlinks, then use exceptional backlinks checker tools like Ahref, monitor backlinks or open site explorer, etc. They alert web owners from time to time about any backlink added to your site. 

3. Secure your site from Hackers or malware 

If you find spam on your site without knowing about it, you have to install Google Authenticator Plugin in WordPress and set up a 2 step verification password. Plus, you're supposed to create a strong password with specific characters and numbers. Besides, you must create a backup of all data of your website regularly. To prevent your site from malware, you can install any Antivirus. 

4. Protect Your Best Backlinks

Sometimes, spammers send fake email requests to remove backlinks. In this Negative SEO attack, you're not recommended to remove your best links and alert these spammers. You can see whether the email address sent by a person includes the domain or not. If your email address is Gmail or Yahoo, then you'll come to know that it's not a natural person. In addition, add tags to your high-quality backlinks so that you can verify if removed by anyone else. 

5. Check Duplicate Content 

Some bad apples copy your Website content and post it on their multiple websites. If your content is duplicated and available on different sites, Google will penalize your site, and your site's ranking will drop. 

To overcome this issue, you can check your website content with a Copyscape tool, which shows related matches of your content on other sites.

6. Regulate your Fake Social media remarks 

Some spammers create fake social profiles with the name of your company/site and post low-quality reviews. Try to remove it. You can detect these social profiles by using the tool Mention.net. This tool will show you wherever your name is used so that you can take action. 

7. Check the Speed of your site 

When your site speed takes time to load, you must check that it's not because of many spammer's comments and requests to your server. If yes, then use the tool Pingdom, which helps you to analyze loading time. Otherwise, if harmful SEO methods poorly attack your site, then contact your host company to resolve the issue. 

8. Avoid other BlackHat sources 

You're not supposed to be a victim of your SEO tactics. In other words, you don't need to follow such methods that are against policies of Google Algorithms like 

Don't buy links from blog networks for SEO. 

Don't link your site to penalized websites. 

Don't publish low-quality guest posts on your site. 

Don't try to build massive bad backlinks with "money keywords" Instead, use your site name for almost 60% within your site's content. 

Don't sell links without using the no-follow attribute on your site. 

Wrapping Up 

Overall, negative SEO is not suitable for any site. If any web admin wants to rank their site for a lifetime, he must do SEO honestly according to Google Algorithms policies. Otherwise, it may lead to a drain of traffic to your site. But if your site is unknowingly involved in Negative SEO, you can fix it by following the above prevent from Negative SEO methods and using recommended tools. Stay Safe!