The Term Negative SEO (a.k.a. NSEO, Reverse SEO, or Adverse SEO) refers to the widespread practice of using malicious tactics in order to intentionally harm a competitor’s search engine rankings, online presence, and/or business reputation. The motivations behind the practice of NSEO contrast dramatically from the motivations of positive SEO, which involves ethical competitive strategies aimed at improving a website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). Negative SEO employs a range of unethical or black-hat techniques to damage a competitor’s site, potentially leading to decreased traffic, lower search engine rankings, loss of revenue, and reputational harm.
Overview
Negative SEO can undermine a website’s performance through various methods, often exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in search engine algorithms and/or security flaws in the target website, as well as weak user-guideline/quality enforcement on consumer review platforms such as Google Business Profiles, TrustPilot, etc.
The concept of negative SEO has been hotly debated among Search Engine Optimizers and Online Marketers since Google’s announcement of its “Penguin” Algorithm in 2012, which prompted many professionals in the sector to stipulate that the building of low-quality spam links to a competitor’s website would significantly harm its organic Google search rankings.
Further, the impact of NSEO on a victim’s business can be significant, affecting not only the targeted website’s SERP rankings but also its public credibility and user trust.
Check Out ArcLite’s: Glossary of Negative SEO Terms
Common Attack Vectors Used in Negative SEO
NSEO encompasses a wide array of attack vectors, which can be broken down into the following broad categories:
- Link-Based Attacks:
- Description: Any Negative SEO attack which relies either on building, redirecting, or removing links to/from the target website
- Impact: Most link-based attacks are outdated, and therefore have little, if any impact. A small number of the more complex link-attack vectors, however, still remain untackled by Google, and can have significant negative effects.
- Canonical Attacks:
- Description: Any duplication attack on a website’s canonicalization setup or attempt to manipulate a website’s incorrect/poor content canonicalization tagging system.
- Impact: The more advanced iterations of canonical attacks can have a pronounced negative effect on their target sites’ rankings, as maliciously duplicated content replaces them in the SERPs.
- Content-Based Attacks:
- Description: A variety of vectors which directly affect the target site’s content, ranging from Comment Pollution to filing illegitimate DMCA takedown requests.
- Impact: Depending on the attack vector used, attacks on competitors’ content can cause lasting negative impact, via triggering “Adult” search filters or outright content removal from search engine indices.
- Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks:
- Description: Any attempt to overload the victim website’s server with a flood of fake requests, in order to slow it down or take it offline entirely.
- Impact: Mainly short-term in nature, DDoS attacks are most effectively deployed during peak times, such as Black Friday for example, when they can cause considerable loss of visitor traffic and revenues.
- Hack Attacks:
- Description: Any malicious intrusion which gains direct control over a website or server in order to directly affect malicious changes to its code or content.
- Impact: Successful intrusions can cause prolonged damage to both SERP exposure and business reputation for the victim, as well as potentially exposing sensitive company and client data to bad actors.
- Brand Manipulation/Impersonation Attacks:
- Description: Any attempt to impersonate the target’s company or its staff through copycat websites, through negative interaction in user/trade forums, or on other public forum platforms, with the intent to either defame the victim or poach its clients.
- Impact: Impersonation attacks can cause considerable reputation damage, as well as loss of revenues. In most cases legal action is required to redress the situation.
- Reputation Attacks:
- Description: Any attempt to tarnish or damage the victim’s reputation through negative reviews or commentary on public review platforms, such as Google Maps, Consumer Reports, on Facebook Groups, etc.
- Impact: Can cause considerable and lasting reputational damage, which in turn can lead to loss of SERP rankings, as well as lost revenue through potential clients being more reluctant to engage services or buy products.
Detection and Prevention
Although there are no reliable defenses against most of the attack-types listed above, Online Business Owners, Webmasters, and Search Engine Optimizers can implement several strategies and approaches to detect and mitigate the effects of negative SEO attacks:
- Monitoring Inbound Link Profiles:
- Description: Regularly reviewing and analyzing backlinks using tools such as Majestic or Google Search Console helps to identify questionable linking activity early on, before any link-based NSEO campaign can gain traction.
- Mitigation: By maintaining an up-to-date disavow file as and when spam and low-quality inbound links are detected the impact of link-based negative SEO attacks can be seriously reduced or even nullified.
- Content Protection Measures:
- Description: Implementing measures to protect original content from scraping. These measures include – but are not limited to – using content protection plugins, regularly checking for duplicate content, and utilizing plagiarism detection tools such as Copyscape.
- Mitigation: Although there is no failsafe way to prevent your original content from being copied, regular monitoring for unauthorized copies and taking concerted action – like filing legitimate DMCA takedown requests in a timely manner – can reduce the risk of content scraping becoming a lasting NSEO problem.
- Robust Cybersecurity:
- Description: Implementing advanced cybersecurity measures, such as securing and obfuscating login URLs, enforcing secure passwords, properly configuring firewalls, and deploying malware scanning tools to protect a website from hacking attempts and malware infections, will lower the risk of malicious intrusion considerably.
- Mitigation: Regularly updating software and plugins, using security plugins like Wordfence or AIO WP Security, and performing regular vulnerability assessments will also heighten a website’s security profile and prevent successful intrusions.
- Proactive Online Reputation Management:
- Description: Actively managing and monitoring online reputation through tracking brand-mentions, via review management tools, social media monitoring, and brand-building public relations efforts help to build and maintain a positive business image.
- Mitigation: Engaging with customers and addressing feedback can help maintain a positive reputation and counteract the effects of false reviews or negative perceptions. Further, responding to customer/audience reviews as a matter of policy, will lower the impact of negative review campaigns.
- Close Server Monitoring:
- Description: Monitoring server performance and traffic to detect unusual patterns that may indicate a DDoS attack or other disruptive activities shortens response times in case of attacks being launched.
- Mitigation: Regular server performance checks and implementing a coherent response plan help to manage and mitigate the effects of server overloads, as does the use of a Content Delivery Network, such as Cloudflare.
Legal and Ethical Considerations
The practice of Negative SEO raises many ethical concerns related to fair competition and respect for online communities. Persistent and unchecked use of NSEO attack vectors by ruthless competitors, disgruntled ex-employees, and other bad actors, against a wide variety of – often high-profile – targets during the past decade continues to undermine public trust in digital marketing and search engine optimization practitioners. This factor is at least partly responsible for the exceedingly poor public image of SEO as a market sector, among the global business community.
While much of the discussion about Negative SEO revolves around the ethical implications of the techniques being used against targets, there are pronounced legal implications involved in some of the more malicious NSEO techniques. In cases of “Impersonation,” for example, direct harm is caused. Other attack vectors can result in breach of ownership, which again carries pronounced legal consequences, if pursued by the victim.
Potential Responses to Negative SEO Attacks
When faced with negative SEO attacks, online business owners, webmasters and SEO professionals can take several steps to address the situation and minimize the damage caused.
- Complaints through Official Channels:
- Description: Filing legitimate DMCA takedown notices, reporting malicious activities to Google and other search engines, contacting offenders’ web hosts, and even reporting illegal activity to law enforcement agencies in certain cases. This necessitates providing evidence and detailed information about the negative SEO tactics and/or other malicious activities used, but can often help in resolving the issues caused by NSEO.
- Likely Results: Search engines, web hosts, or law enforcement agencies may investigate and take action against perpetrators, including issuing penalties or removing harmful content, and even prosecution in rare and extreme cases.
- Enhancing SEO Efforts:
- Description: Strengthening positive SEO efforts by improving site content, optimizing on-page and off-page elements, and engaging in high-quality link-building strategies. Engaging in a structured, proactive Online Reputation Management campaign to reinforce company reputation and create positive public brand perception.
- Likely Results: Focusing on legitimate, high quality Search Engine Optimization strategies, and preventively reinforcing company/brand reputation can help to minimize the effects of NSEO attacks and recover from their negative effects, while continuously improving overall brand/website visibility, visitor traffic, and sales/revenue.
- Seeking Legal Advice:
- Description: Consulting with legal professionals if negative SEO tactics lead to significant, direct reputation/financial damages or involve other legal violations. Legal counsel can provide guidance on potential actions to take and remedies to seek.
- Likely Results: Legal action can sometimes be necessary to address severe cases of negative SEO, like defamation attacks, impersonation, or malicious intrusion. Although rare, consequences can include pursuing compensation for damages through the courts, issuing injunctions, and/or otherwise enforcing legal protections.
Conclusions:
Negative SEO continues to represent a challenging and controversial aspect of the digital marketing landscape, and has done so for almost a decade and a half. Only by significantly raising public awareness of and through fostering increased understanding of the NSEO tactics being used by unethical operators and ruthless competitors, can this persistent stain on the SEO market sector’s public reputation be effectively addressed.
Solely through implementing preventive measures, and strictly adhering to established ethical practices, can online business owners, webmasters, and SEO professionals even begin to protect their online presence against the negative effects of malicious attacks.
Both public awareness and continuous vigilance are crucial components of maintaining a positive and secure online environment, and ensuring that ethical SEO tactics and efforts contribute to foster free and fair competition, and legitimate success, without undue interference from malicious operators or bad actors.