Just to move away slightly from the possible/not possible argument which we hear so many times on so many forums. A couple of months ago, I was talking to a very well respected online marketer friend of mine who is based in the US and we got into a little discussion about the willingness of businesses to carry out negative SEO attacks on each other. His argument was that if it was handed on a plate and complete anonymity was guaranteed, many businesses would be very eager to launch such an attack.
I was of the opposite side of the argument. At one point, growing slightly weary of the bad Skype line we were chatting on, I tried to finish the conversation on top by using a bit of a cheap shot. I said with my tongue firmly in my cheek "Maybe in the US that's true but not here in the UK". Yes I know... terrible thing to say and before you all jump in, our arguments tend to be quite lively and we make a point of always resorting to cheap stereotypes. If it makes you feel better he also has the occasional dig about my supposedly British trademark of being overly polite and apologising all the time even when its not deserved.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I decided to carry out a little test which is on my blog if you want to read the details (Mods? can I put a link here?).
We sent out 84 emails offering guaranteed negative seo service for £250
61 responded
2 told me to xxxx off.
11 Politely rejected the offer.
19 Wanted more information.
29 Wanted to go ahead.
So a 79% of people wanted to go ahead or were very interested. I have to admit that really did surprise me. Am I the only one surprised by those results?
Mods Note: Changed the title to better reflect the math. 19 interested responses + 29 go ahead responses divided by 84 businesses contacted = 57% [edited by: goodroi at 6:16 pm (utc) on Feb 2, 2015]
