Negative SEO verbal threat

[CaptainSalad2]

So I had a client phone me today and say he had a call from a guy with an Indian accent who told him that he will destroy his website rankings if he doesn't pay him £10 per month to NOT do this. What the hell...

What can I do since I cant suggest going to the police if the guys in India! Is this even possible?

[edited by: goodroi at 12:55 pm (utc) on Jan 16, 2014]

[lucy24]

Even in India you can't support a family on £10/month. They'd have to send out lots of threats. And that's lots of chances for someone to ignore the threat ... and then notice that nothing happens.

Make your demands too low and people won't take you seriously.

:: vague mental association with villain in first Austin Powers movie ::

[netmeg]

I'd bet yours is not the only site this person is attempting this on.

And I'd bet that if he actually follows through (which I for one kind of doubt, but it's possible) he probably will use the same link "networks" on multiple sites.

Therefore, I'd bet Google will probably figure it out.

In your case, I'd do absolutely nothing.

[FranticFish]

I can only tell you good links don't get penalized because of bad

My own recent experience was that bad links definitely can spoil the effect of good links - or at least 'better than bad' links. See [webmasterworld.com...]

[rbarker]

My own recent experience was that bad links definitely can spoil the effect of good links - or at least 'better than bad' links.

That's the situation I'm in. I have 100's of high quality relevant links that also generate traffic. Left to themselves, they keep me high page-one for some very important terms. Now throw in a few 1000 bad links and my placement sinks.

Rather than waiting/hoping for the Google Calvary to show up, I'm updating my disavow list every few weeks...

[itsjustme2]

That's the situation I'm in. I have 100's of high quality relevant links that also generate traffic. Left to themselves, they keep me high page-one for some very important terms. Now throw in a few 1000 bad links and my placement sinks.

thousand plus of good links here, over 10,000 bad links.

It's tough for webmasters to divide the bad links into categories.

some bad links are just template spam, like the 10,000 or so auto generated template pages in Chinese I'm confronting on my site

It's nice to get a home page link, it would be even nicer if the 1 billion or so Chinese internet users ever visited my site.

I've been pondering the utility of updating the disavow file on a weekly basis because I found 50 additional similar links from Majestic.

Is there any problem with constant updates of the disavow file?

Bad link problems also extend to the scrappers...
if a scrapper is taking pages rather than domains then the pages, and their keywords, get put on other sites multiple times, resulting in the "overoptimized anchor text" penalty...

at least that's how I'm reading it now.

Negative seo can wipe out a site in so many technical ways, making it tough to deal with

Maybe the sites that report recovery with disavow tool only had to deal with a limited number of catetories...for example, they knew they purchased 500 squidoo lenses and 500 articles from article site A, B, and C

disavowing those links by domain means only disavowing four domains.

Finding and disavowing thousands of domains for template spam and scrapper spam with overoptimzied anchor text consequences is a totally different kettle of fish...

[bwnbwn]

If you are a one man own the domain then rbaker this is possible, but what or how do you add charges to accounts that you manage. I can't (well I can if I shift my work priorities) do thos link check every couple of weeks and submit on request at a time to Google.

This brings up an interesting topic. Google is driving up the cost of a continued web presence be it through a paid firm or individual for a website. There is not doubt about this.

Google is also reducing the number of websites a person can effectively manage due to the time spent in ranking a website in this new environment. Any problem with this statement?

So rbaker might have hit on a good SEO tactic to every few weeks review your new link profile and either let it go or disavow.

I am one that hasn't spent time worrying about this but it is certainly worth exploring.

[fathom]

That's the situation I'm in. I have 100's of high quality relevant links that also generate traffic. Left to themselves, they keep me high page-one for some very important terms. Now throw in a few 1000 bad links and my placement sinks.

Rather than waiting/hoping for the Google Calvary to show up, I'm updating my disavow list every few weeks...

I absolutely disagree... bad links are not bad without the juice that forms the foundation of the manipulation... so re-phrasing your post:

That's the situation I'm in. I have 100's of high quality relevant links that also generate traffic. Left to themselves, they keep me high page-one for some very important terms. Now throw in a few 1000 bad links and my placement rises even further.

Throwing in thousands of worthless links that have no link juice (e.g. that are not on indexed pages in Google for one) isn't manipulation, so there is no positive impact to suggest manipulation thus no negative impact either.

[turbocharged]

Throwing in thousands of worthless links that have no link juice (e.g. that are not on indexed pages in Google for one) isn't manipulation, so there is no positive impact to suggest manipulation thus no negative impact either.

Pure fallacy. Whether the bad links carry juice or not is only one factor to consider. We have all witnessed Google employees publicly comment about unnatural links that are "keyword rich." If the bad links do not carry any juice, but are keyword rich, that may be enough to trigger an algorithmic demotion along with other quality (or lack thereof) signals.

Most people assume that all legitimate and useful websites have tens of thousands of quality links pointing to their websites that will insulate them from negative seo. This is not the case for many, many specialized small businesses that are easy targets for scammers that can easily hold them hostage.

[scaifea]

CaptainSalad2

He pays £15

What do you do for your £15 a month?

[CaptainSalad2]

Too much, a customized “properly hand coded” mobile responsive website, (updatable via a CMS I designed from scratch) hosting, email account, support, advise local SEO services. The “free” website was a means to an end and is needed because I can get better SEO results out of a properly coded lean site than the junky crap most of them approach me with initially! it doesn’t need to be said, I know!

[scaifea]

Crumbs! None of my clients had better not talk to you as I can't compete with that price :-)

[rbarker]

Is there any problem with constant updates of the disavow file?

I don't think so. I didn't read anywhere that there are submission limits. Google says they will only disavow whatever links are submitted. I think you can even reverse the effect by submitting a new list with maybe just one or two domains. The links don't disappear, they are just not counted.

Google is also reducing the number of websites a person can effectively manage due to the time spent in ranking a website in this new environment. Any problem with this statement?

Makes sense to me. I only have to manage two sites I own so updating a disavow list is relatively easy for me. If I had to manage dozens (100's?) of sites updating a disavow list every few weeks would take up a huge amount of time.

[Rezoan]

Just omit it, if the website is getting SEO service from an honest professional then its easy to deal with a Negative SEO threat. :)

[fathom]

Just omit it, if the website is getting SEO service from an honest professional then its easy to deal with a Negative SEO threat.

In reverse, if your domain so easily succumbs to Negative SEO influences you don't have much of a website to start with which then baits the argument: "why on earth would anyone waste time on damaging you?"

[mrengine]

In reverse, if your domain so easily succumbs to Negative SEO influences you don't have much of a website to start with which then baits the argument: "why on earth would anyone waste time on damaging you?"

I beg your pardon. One of our websites does a good six figures in sales per year and has a grand total of 33 links pointing to the site. To answer your question... Why would someone would waste their time damaging this site? So they can take our piece of the pie and eat it with theirs too. It's all about the main motivator behind a person's actions - money.

We watch this and all of our sites like hawks these days because Google has gone berserk. To think that a competitor, and we do have them, can harm our business is deplorable.

Although I can't speak for the posters site, I know for a fact how vulnerable our website is. Just because it is vulnerable does not mean it has no value. The site resides in a micro-niche and does not fall under the category of affiliate junk or adsense informational site garbage.