Over the last few years, the search engine optimisation (SEO) industry has had a significant transformation, especially when Google releases updates from time to time to enhance the relevance and quality of the search results.
But even though doing this is a great move by Google, many strategies of digital marketing experts have shifted dramatically. Gaining a high rank on Google is no longer the same or as simple as before
Besides black hat SEO becoming harder to execute, its delivering results were no longer impressive as it used to be. And that is when negative SEO came into the picture, another type of SEO that malicious parties (closest competitors) started implementing on other websites to try and get them penalised.
ALSO READ: 4 Black Hat SEO Techniques That Will Harm Your Website
As a business owner, you should be wary about this news since your website is no exception from negative SEO attacks. If someone deliberately executes it to harm your business and file a report of negative SEO to Google, expect the rankings for your targeted keywords to drop.
To guarantee that would not happen to your website, we listed down everything you need to know about negative SEO, including how to protect your website from experiencing negative SEO.
What Is Negative SEO?
Based on the negative SEO brief definition mentioned above, negative SEO is the act of black hat SEO.
Unlike black hat SEO, negative SEO is a malicious attempt by others to put your website at risk, which can ruin your reputation with Google while harming your rankings and altering or disabling your website’s SEO priorities to reduce its effectiveness.
But how exactly does negative SEO affect your SEO strategies for your company?
Since negative SEO can manifest in different forms, it can directly or indirectly affect your SEO strategies:
- Remove your website’s most effective backlinks.
- Make copies of your content and spread it all over the internet.
- Create fake social accounts/profiles and use them to ruin your online reputation.
- Create numerous spammy links to your website.
These can significantly disrupt your digital marketing efforts and render certain SEO services in Singapore ineffective.
How To Spot Negative SEO Attacks?
Even though negative SEO is not easily noticeable as it doesn’t affect a site’s look and feel, several signs suggest you may be a victim of a successful negative SEO attack.
Some of these are:
1. Fake Link Removal Requests
This type of negative SEO attack aims to remove the quality links by sending sneaky link removal requests to the website’s webmaster that links to you. If you let that slip away, chances are there will be fewer people who see or discover your digital marketing campaign online.
That is why if you receive a notification, either a message from Google informing the webmaster that it has taken action against the website or from the webmaster, you should verify whether you are the ones who made the link removal requests or not.
2. Content Scraping
Another most common negative SEO is content scraping. It means that someone deliberately duplicates or copies content from your website and distributes it all over the internet.
To spot if someone already scraped your content, type a sentence or entire paragraph from one of the digital marketing campaigns you posted, and it will appear on search engine result pages.
Here is an example from Ashefs to help you understand how to spot content scraping.
How To Protect Your Website From Negative SEO?
Many ways help you deflect negative SEO and limit its damage on your website. And that is why while you are still here, you should keep the following in mind.
1. Perform Regular Link Audit
Doing this constantly and consistently is probably the best way to stay safe and identify malicious negative SEO activities before they can cause real damage to websites.
Monitoring the link profile growth of your business can help you discover suspicious link activity before it causes more harm. Know that a sudden change in this, even though you have not worked on any link building campaigns, would also be at risk of potential negative SEO attack.
2. Enable Email Notification from Google Search Console
Apart from easy monitoring and loading issues, you could also use Google Search Console to update the webmaster concerning the health of your website.
If you successfully enable email notification from Google Search Console, expect emails to pop up whenever a page(s) are indexed on search engines, malware or spyware is attacking your website or links to you.
By then, you can disavow any suspicious backlink and secure your website from any negative SEO attacks. Just make sure that once you receive an email notification, you will properly access the problem in real-time.
Conclusion
Negative SEO attacks can happen any time, anywhere, and for any reason. As a business owner, you should always be on the lookout so preventing negative SEO attacks will not be too late, and you can guarantee the safety of your website.
That is why if you need a hand, outsource your SEO in Singapore. Know that having additional sets of eyes would help protect your business from negative SEO.
For tips and tricks, get in touch with our SEO agency. Contact OOm at 6391-0930 for more information.
