Negative SEO is the latest “buzzword” that is dominating webmaster forums.
What is negative SEO? Negative SEO is the label given to certain actions aimed at hurting the rankings of your website. These actions could be initiated either by your competitors or malicious individuals determined to bring your site down.
Just as nasty gossip can be targeted towards any person, negative SEO can be targeted towards any website.
If you have been a target, your site rapidly drops in SERPS ( Search Engine Result Pages) and in extreme cases, it can even disappear from the search engine index.
This list is obviously not exhaustive as new tactics come to light all the time. As the online competition becomes more and more fierce, some companies, in desperation, grab any tactics they can to get to or stay in the top 10 results of Google.
Here is an excerpt from blackhatworld forum:
Matt Cutts in the past has always maintained that Negative SEO is not really possible. Only recently he is changing his statement. He also keeps on saying Penguin update is not associated with any ‘penalty’. So, just to test it out, I blasted about 4 different sites ranking in the top page of Google for keywords with search volume around 6000 per day – with 10,000 xrummer links.
All the sites went from 1st page to nowhere in just 2 days . They have not recovered even after a week. If the new algorithm really pushed good authority sites to the top, these sites should not go down so easily with just 1 blast of xrummer. It just shows how Google’s Penguin update is so vulnerable to Negative SEO.
Sometimes it is the clients themselves, who trigger negative SEO signals, either by not having sufficient SEO knowledge, or by trying to “outsmart” Google.
Here are some examples:
In extreme cases, when you have a larger site and you have been de-listed, you may try to use this negative seo online link removal tool which has just been lauched by a US company – Virante (June 2012). The service is still in Beta and is not cheap, but it at least offers some hope to the website owners who have been hit by the latest Panda and Penguin algorithm update.
If you been hit by negative SEO or you have experienced a sudden drop in Google rankings, contact us.
Remember good content in a well structured site should be your primary aim, it makes off page SEO much more effective and may well reduce your PPC advertising costs as well.