Negative SEO, any experiences?

[xelaetaks]

Anyone here ever get hit with negative SEO?

When doing link removal outreach someone sent me one hndred links asking for money to remove them. I look in ahrefs adn a keyword density went from maybe 4% to over 24% overnight! I added the links to disavow but find it disturbing considerung people aren't sure how well it looks and now to Google it could possibly look spammy wyen in actuality I was trying to remove backlinks.

I made a post on Google forum aboyt it and sent a messgae to John Mueller, whether that will help I don't know. Google doesn't seems to acknowledge negative SEO much so I hope it doesn't screw me over wfter my clean up efforts this may also be arguably one of the problems with Penguin - it opens up this kind of business online.

[goodroi]

If a 100 links can increase your anchor text density from 4% to 24% you might want to focus more on link & traffic development and worry less about negative SEO.

I've have done several negative SEO tests over the last 12 months and the fear is worse than the reality. Too often negative SEO is a misdiagnosed case of underdeveloped positive SEO. I have taken victims of "negative SEO" and fixed the traffic issue simply by addressing the missing positive SEO. I am not saying negative SEO doesn't exist but too often people use it as a scapegoat.

The more link development and traffic diversity you generate the healthier your website becomes and the more protected your profits are from negative SEO attempts.

[seoskunk]

I have been a victim of neg seo in the past.

If a 100 links can increase your anchor text density from 4% to 24% you might want to focus more on link & traffic development and worry less about negative SEO.

If your talking organic links then 100 new links is massive for any site.Negative links on this scale will dent your site.

I've have done several negative SEO tests over the last 12 months and the fear is worse than the reality.

Absolute crap!

Too often negative SEO is a misdiagnosed case of underdeveloped positive SEO. I have taken victims of "negative SEO" and fixed the traffic issue simply by addressing the missing positive SEO. I am not saying negative SEO doesn't exist but too often people use it as a scapegoat.

Yep it does exist and I think you would be surprised at the sources it comes from.

[seoskunk]

The trouble is goodroi you have no actual experience of neg seo, unfortunately I do.

[Clay_More]

I've directed 250k links to sites I control, I've directed 10-20 links to other sites I control. Many other combinations in between.

You want to keep an eye on anchor text and you want to pay attention to what kind of links they are. I have learned a lot, but I have to agree with goodroi, negative seo is more a lack of positive seo than anything else.

[xelaetaks]

Thing is with quality links I get them over time. To change anchor text density of 100 links unless doing it tons of nofollow isn't likely. Still, looking into adding more trust signals tho.

On Google forums someone said Google doesn't index that crap and to disavow them and move on.

Now on ahrefs it shows for a keyword a density of over 24%. How can Google tell someone wasn't trying to make crappy links vs negative seo that took place? It could be they have filters against negative seo but they don't talk about it much.

[GreyBeard123]

On Google forums someone said Google doesn't index that crap and to disavow them and move on.

Which links aren’t indexed by Google?

[xelaetaks]

Link directories this directory spammer linked me to. He said he has a network of 1600 directories. I can message you examples if interested. The directories all look similar though. On Google forum the guy said it shouldn't benefit or hurt sites to have links from there since the not indexed.

[Clay_More]

Still, looking into adding more trust signals tho.

Get religion. I haven't looked at other religions, but Christianity has some interesting facets. If you use Google search operators creatively, you should be able to find places where you can contribute and possibly pick up a no-follow link.

I'll take a high trust no-follow any day of the week.

[glakes]

On Google forums someone said Google doesn't index that crap and to disavow them and move on.

I would not put my faith in an anonymous "someone." Disavow as many of the links as you can, whether they are indexed or not. Googlebot will still crawl that person's deindexed directories, and you want to be protected.

If your positive SEO is lacking, merely because you followed Google's guidelines and have not been building artificial links, you will probably have to go greyhat just to protect yourself as other have mentioned.

[GreyBeard123]

If Google de-index a domain, due to links, that domain is gone, completely out of the index…

That domain’s URL’s/links are also gone, completely out of the index…

That domain owner can link to whoever he wants; it won’t mean anything, as they won't be in the index….
Neither he, nor you, will be able to index those links, and they won’t harm any site…

But, if a domain is indexed, then links from that domain can be indexed, irrespective of how crappy they are…

[xelaetaks]

@glakes yeah I disavowed the links. Google doesn't even offer a way to report negative seo so ya, I take things said by Google or on their forums with a grain of salt. Webmaster tools haven't shown new links but they don't show all links either way and seem to show updates a bit late. Traffic has gone back to nothing from Google the past two days, will see if it's from negative SEO or they have reversed Penguin again which seems to be happening.

[Planet13]

...you will probably have to go greyhat just to protect yourself as other have mentioned.

What is YOUR definition of "greyhat"?

[cbpayne]

Most of the so-called negative seo attacks that I have looked into, the site often sucked, had other issues and had a pre-exisiting weak link profile; any one of which could have explained the drop in rankings.

Strong sites do not seem to be affected by negative SEO.

[glakes]

What is YOUR definition of "greyhat"?

Building links that seek to influence how search engines interpret the popularity and/or quality of a website.

Strong sites do not seem to be affected by negative SEO.

That's entirely industry specific. In some industries a strong link profile is a few dozen links.

[seoskunk]

Strong sites do not seem to be affected by negative SEO.

Absolute crap. When I was dealing with neg seo I used same lawyer as people like Ebay and other top names for dmca requests.

Unless you understand the net you won't get neg seo. I will say this though, you would be surprised where it comes from.

[cbpayne]

Care to show us a site with a 'strong' backlink profile that has been negative SEO'd? I have never seen one or heard of one.

[seoskunk]

Apart from my own page rank 8 site way back when, easy Ebay! Ebay is continually negatively effected. That's why it doesn't rank like amazon.

[cbpayne]

No they not; they lost a lot of rankings recently from Google algorithm changes! Ebay admitted that. Not from negative SEO! Or do you have some actual evidence of some successful negative SEO against them that you can share?

[seoskunk]

they lost a lot of rankings recently from Google algorithm changes! Ebay admitted that

Unless you learn to read between the lines cbpayne this conversation is pointless.

Ebay have been in a war with old affiliates for a long time, yes they getting tons of negative seo and yes its damaging them. Do I want to share. That could potentially damage other sites, I am sure Ebay are smart enough to work it out themselves. I am surprised they are still affected by all this but they are!

[Clay_More]

Without doing any kind of analysis whatsoever, I'd say it is possible that Ebay is losing position to Amazon because....What's Ebay?

Craigslist and a ton of different bidding type sites have to have encroached on their business and volume. SERPs reflect that, which isn't to be unexpected.

[Nutterum]

Before this topic gets derailed by Ebay vs. "The World Speculation Consortium" I`d like to mention that in many many industries the situation is one or two "leader" websites with 100k+ backlinks some with questionable backlink profiles at that and then the rest of medium/small business websites that barely have 500 backlinks if that. Reason is that these websites can not benefit from greyhat SEO much as either they do not have a good way to be listed in directories (think many of the b2b businesses) or consider that its better to "save face" and maintain small but high ranking profile.

And those websites are the ones affected most heavily by negative SEO unless they act quickly and start the disavow game of cat and mouse.

[Planet13]

This entire thread seems bereft of facts and specifics.

[buckworks]

It has to be. The Terms of Service say so.

[seoskunk]

This entire thread seems bereft of facts and specifics.

I am not going to post specific negative seo techniques as they will be copied. It just pisses me off as an ex-victim when people spout crap about it, like "it doesn't exist" and "it only happens to weak sites". Unfortunately that's just not true. It's still an emotional subject for me maybe its best I don't post anymore on it.

[Clay_More]

seoskunk,

You say Ebay is getting tons of negative SEO and it is damaging them.

They are a big well known site and I'm guessing you aren't a controlling owner.
So how are they being damaged? If you aren't a controlling owner then you maybe don't have access to their internal financials?

If you shared how Ebay is being damaged, then perhaps they could "fix" it, since it appears they don't have the resources to do it on their own.

Think about it, because what we often see as obvious isn't really the causative factor.

[Planet13]

"I am not going to post specific negative seo techniques as they will be copied... It's still an emotional subject for me maybe its best I don't post anymore on it."

I, for one, would like to hear you post more on it. I hope you can post more on it without mentioning specifics on HOW it was done, while still explaining WHAT was done.

Also, it would be helpful to know when it was done, and what your site was like prior to the attack.

And while I can appreciate your intentions when you say "I am not going to post specific negative seo techniques as they will be copied," I would postulate that anyone who intends to do negative SEO WILL ALREADY BE FAMILIAR WITH THOSE TECHNIQUES.

In essence, by NOT mentioning them, you are NOT preventing people who do negative SEO for a living from doing them, while you MIGHT be preventing victims of negative SEO from recognizing those attacks.

[seoskunk]

Ok without going into specifics on how this is done,

A negative seo campaign aims to use all googles filters against the victim

Penguin Filter:

Linking target site to known spam sites and overusing keywords in link text

Reducing the site inbound links by attacking associates or making false removal requests

Content Filter (Panda):

Duplicating the site

Forcing canonical problems on a site (canonical problems don't end with redirecting to www.)

Feeding the site content out to other blogs, sites in small snippets

Duplicating the site through proxies and translation servers

Scraping the site and redistributing content and meta titles and descriptions

Hotlinking images

Denial of Service

Hacking the site

Thats what your up against. Hope it helps someone

[GreyBeard123]

Ddos attacks…

[xelaetaks]

Some things that could be interesting to have answered-

Can Google pick up attacks such as one where someone gets sent 100-200 links at a time with the same anchor text over and over? In other words do they have any filters for neg seo ? What if a site is deindexed that sends neg seo does google ignore those links?

Can a webowner or even webhost get a legal case for neg seo if there is proof such as the owner sending a list of links to solicit for money ?

Some ideas that can be thought about.