Why is Negative SEO Becoming More Common?
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There’s little question that Google Bowling or “Negative SEO” is gaining a lot of popularity lately. While I myself have never done it(beyond a tests I did on my own domains that weren’t pulling their weight), I was able to talk to a few people who are experienced in it, and was able to get some insights as to why it’s becoming such an epidemic. And yes, those people gave me permission to post on what it is they do.
For Those Unfamiliar with Negative SEO
For those of you who don’t know the term, negative SEO is where you take your competitors sites, and on behalf of that competitor gather up spammy links, or engage in other practices that cause them to be penalized or banned from the search engines.
- Google Tightening Up On Webmasters
Lately, Google has been a lot more restrictive on webmasters. Paid links being one of the obvious nooses tightening. But beyond that, it’s become a lot easier for sites to get banned for nothing more than link spam(with actual content). I’ve actually experienced and tested this first hand. With sites that have no protection to weed out the unwanted link spam traffic, the lifespans are rapidly diving. - It’s Now Easier to Damage Competitors than to Promote your Own Site
As a result of #1, low-risk links are becoming more rare. And if you do anything like purchasing yourself, your competitors may very well report your own links, resulting in a lot of wasted money. Since gathering legit(ish) links has become harder, desperate webmasters often turn to negative SEO - Google Made a DECISION That This was Acceptable Risk
If you remember awhile ago, it was in theory impossible(or close to impossible) to be banned for external events(IE links) affecting your website. This is obvious no longer. And the ratios of bad:good links are getting tighter. In my last test, a site I owned with 50% good links left stable for 4 months. After that, I dropped about 50% bad links for the site. It lasted (and indeed prospered) a month or two, then disappeared altogether.
Google had a choice to make. They could either protect their index fully against spammed/bought/bulk submitted back links, or they could protect against negative SEO. They chose to protect it against purchased/spammed links.
So How Simple is Negative SEO?
Note: I’m leaving out some key details in this one so it’s not too obvious how it’s done. But either way, it’s really not brain surgery. Also, the test results I’m explaining here are a month or so old, so god willing Google has fixed these by now? I held off on purpose this long.
Negative SEO is terribly simple.
- In my tests, something as simple as doing a 301 redirect from a banned site in a similar or identical niche was enough to have a relatively dramatic impact on rankings. If the pages were 301ed individually to a similar page on the competitors site? Even more dramatic.
- Link spamming even works. Whereas sites that have messageboard profiles that end up ranking top 10 for “buy viagra” are rarely penalized, it’s not too hard to find the difference between that and intentional link spam. I won’t get into the details on that though.
- Duplicate content is the hardest to defend against. While Google’s dupe content filters are generally a joke, this is not so with full content scrapes. Especially in situations where there is an RSS feed. A quick copy and more rapid promotion via any number of methods gathers more link juice to the duplicate article, and it can lead to the original being flagged as duplicate content.
- Another duplicate content trick is for people that have catch-all subdomains leading to the same content. Hyping those up causes the domain to duplicate itself if the webmaster hasn’t specified a preferred domain/prefix.
Holy Crap, How Can I Defend Against That?
Honestly? You really can’t. You can protect a bit against the duplicate content by injecting a link or two into your posts linking back(linking to a site with the source content is enough to make you not the “original” normally). Especially consider using non-standard tags(forgetting the quotes in the <a href= tag for example), or shuffling up the order of elements within the tags. If you’re lucky, you can break the scrapers regular expressions if they try and remove links.
There’s nothing you can do about link spam method that I can think of. Submitting spam complaints on it and explaining it isn’t you might have an affect, but also may be a pipe dream. Beyond that, you may have luck contacting the messageboard owners and whatnot about getting the link removed.
So Who is Vulnerable to This?
Really, the smallest sites are most vulnerable. Can TechCrunch be taken down by link spam? I doubt it. But that lovely site you worked on about satin throw pillows? I wouldn’t doubt it. A properly executed attack can do damage to even a relatively established site.
Conclusion
There’s a lot I didn’t cover here that I suspect would work, simply because I didn’t have any more throwaway domains that were both not making money, and were ranking highly enough for something to measure the effects.
Really though people, if you can’t rank highly enough, look at their site and figure out why they’re ranking so much higher. Don’t take the easy way out. If you can’t beat them with your own site, they deserve the ranking.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:47 am
As someone who is currently running an “offensive” seo campaign i can truly say that it works and is something that should be looked at in the near future … even though targetting smaller sites is easier, bigger sites can be targetted by both 301’s and buying bad links (offensive budget anyone)
my 2 p
February 28th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I’m currently planning a neg. seo campaign for a client of mine that wants the “offensive” site down.
After running some tests I couldn’t believe how easy it is to affect even a large site - adding 15%-20% bad links (to their existing links) was enough to have them lose quite a bit of traffic.
Pretty soon I’ll see how it goes with a full scale attack.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Dude nice post - i suspected as such thanks for sharing the results of your tests.
If you do come up with any further ideas how to protect a site, post it up man.
Cheers
February 29th, 2008 at 4:30 am
Your #3 is somehow questionable … can you say that your site had NO ONSITE TRICKS inlcuding but ot limited to: cloaking, generated content and such?
That fact that your site was completely clean, yet Google banned you just for offsite tactics even if your initial link profile was good … sounds funny.
If I was Google I would never ban a site for a strong linkspam anti-campaign if it had a good initial backlink profile. Not many sites take such hits so I would just hand-job them. And they should probably be doing this … if they give a sheet. (Matt knows better.)
I’m sure Google understands that some sites keep some families with food on the table and NO IDIOT who does not have the #1 spot and can’t get it the legit way SHOULD BE ALLOWED to take them down. (I’m against ‘unasked for’ negative campaigns!)
PS: Florine … esti sigur ca ala este un offensive site sau atacul e doar de bulangeala?
February 29th, 2008 at 5:08 am
Negative SEO sucks. I won’t do anything like this not for a million dollars even if it’s way easier than proper SEO because I’ll have no satisfaction. I understand blackhat SEO and I have nothing against it as long as it doesn’t involve doing harm to competiton by direct attacks to their sites.The thing I like most about doing SEO is the growth over time I see in traffic and sales caused by ethical strategies. That’s where I get my adrenaline from and this keeps me going. It’s like a puzzle I have to solve and need to keep looking for solutions. If I just look for cheats on google I will never feel like I solved it with my own power. I know I’m smart enough to do it on my own. I guess Florin isn’t smart enough
Florin, from what I understand the “offensive” site is not a bad site but a competitive site. I wonder what you’ll feel when the “offensive” site will drop. In my opinion you are an idiot mofo care-mi va face tara de ras la un moment dat. Si pentru ca m-ai enervat in dimineata asta, ce parere ai daca greentwinkie o sa fie banat? Cred ca merita sa cheltui ceva bani numai ca se te vad la pamant
February 29th, 2008 at 11:11 am
So hypothetically, how do you go about identifying “bad sites” to redirect from, if you don’t own those domains yourself?
February 29th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Even if you don’t get a competitor’s site banned, it is very easy and inexpensive to make it difficult for that new site to rank. I wouldn’t recommend anybody try this since karma is a bitch but it is something to be aware when you start new sites. Before attracting any attention to yourself, make sure you AT LEAST have some links from high quality directories (Yahoo, BOTW, etc.), and preferably a few more good ones from local sites like the chamber of commerce, so you can more likely wither the link spam competitors may throw at you. I actually wrote a post about this very issue myself a few days ago.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:42 am
@5ubliminal: Yes, I can honestly say that. It had some affiliate plugs in it, but it was a stardard wordpress installation. I agree with your point about Google, but it would appear that it doesn’t matter as much anymore.
@miki: I agree. Not about the sales caused by “ethical strategies” so much, but about negative SEO. I determine my own ethics, not Google.
@Melanie: Normally, a blackhat will have dozens and dozens(if not thousands) of banned sites left over. They are still crawled, so redirects register.
@Dave Shapiro: Agreed. The more established the site is, the less vulnerable it is.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
[…] «Google Bowling» und ist längst ein Business-Modell . Das Fazit eines kürzlich publizierten Selbsttests verbessert den Schlaf auch nicht […]
February 29th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I don’t see anything wrong with harming your competitors. I have to side with Sun Tzu and his position in the Art of War. You have to take every advantage and use every weapon at your disposal to crush the opponent.
I will never agree that anyone “deserves” to rank above me. I will fight tooth and nail to get every position, visitor, and sale within legal and ethical means. Is it unethical for Walmart to browbeat suppliers into lowering their prices, enter a new city with low prices to kill off the competition, only to raise them once everyone else is out of business? Is it unethical for Apple to run smear ad campaigns against Microsoft? Or is it just good business?
Stealing customers or search positions is not theft, it’s just good business. May the best businesses win.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[…] Getting your competitors banned from Google Written by admin0 on February 29, 2008 – 3:28 pm - This will just be a short post (like most of mine), but i just wanted to expand on a post by XMCP123 on negative SEO. […]
February 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I’m sure i’m going to regret this, but i wrote a post with an additional technique that works very well. (and is pretty much imposable to protect against)
http://blog.i3lackspace.com/archives/10
(don’t worry, your got some links back xmcp
)
February 29th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I think its fairly questionable whether negative seo is part of ‘good business’ as James puts it, but it is an accepted reality that all businesses must deal with. Of course, its not the businesses that are to blame, but rather Google itself for closing one gap (paid links) but leaving perhaps a wider one open
Just my 2 cents — Dev
February 29th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Alright everyone. Thanks for your input!
The post will be up tomorrow, after I crop down the images.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I think you meant to add that comment on the post about outing SEO.com
February 29th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Cheers Miki
February 29th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I seem to be stuck on fanboy comments here, but what’s a guy to do?
I don’t do negative SEO, but these things are important to know for everyone - and as always kudos to XMCP for providing specifics. We need to know this so we can diagnose and protect ourselves against this.
This actually makes me wonder - if someone’s got a relatively clean link profile but has bought some clearly paid links if reporting them will get them taken down. Or just buying some paid links on their behalf and then reporting them. Rough stuff Google’s playing with these days.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:34 am
302 redirections can also do much damage. The url with the 302 can sometimes take the place of the original page.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:12 am
sweet. new uses for xrumer!
i’m with sun tzu
muahahahaha
March 4th, 2008 at 7:21 am
[quote]Don’t take the easy way out. If you can’t beat them with your own site, they deserve the ranking.[/quote]
Right so a simple one man band with limited or no money, should be able to compete with multi-billion dollar companies, who buy PR , adverts , full scale SEO, traditional marketing , PPC etc etc..
and yet If I can’t beat them they deserve to be top because they are bigger , stronger and have more money.
YOU TWAT!!!!!!!!!
March 4th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
John, did I ever say to beat them playing by the rules? NO!
A good blackhat effort can STILL kick their ass, without hitting their site.
Be creative. Half those places are SEOed like shit anyways, and survive off bulk quantity.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
[…] by wouz whats google bowling? you got some reading to catch up on bro… you can start here: Why is Negative SEO Becoming More Common? : Slightly Shady SEO and you could try doing a search of the board here… think we have a thread or 3 about it… […]
March 5th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
[…] by Neuromancer in SEO, Security. trackback There have been some comments recently (here and here) that it is possible to attack a third party by a number of methods including redirecting a banned […]
March 13th, 2008 at 10:51 am
James Dunn is right. This notion of Neg SEO being “unethical” just doesn’t fly in my books. If it were unethical Google would have some method of penalizing for doing it.
There are too many people that think they have a “right” to a top ranking on the search engines. Your site is essentially using Google as a service, and lives and dies by the parameters set within their algorithm. That obviously comes with some risk and any smart website owner knows that.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am
[…] you have a single large website, you become a target of
April 1st, 2008 at 11:39 am
That’s exactly why I voted for a disavow backlink tool in Google Webmaster Console…
April 6th, 2008 at 4:53 am
Sorry for the late replies.
@Subliminal - the site I’m talking about is competition for a client, so it’s not “bulangeala” it’s business.
@Miki - I haven’t accepted business through greentwinkie for a year now so if it’s banned it doesn’t mean anything for me. If you get paid to ban it, so be it, at least you learned something new..
And just because it’s unethical doesn’t mean it’s illegal, so keep the name calling for yourself until you actually know what true competition is.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[…] harm your websites’ rankings.” According to some black hat SEO experts, that is not true anymore. Negative SEO techniques, such as link spamming or buying penalized sites in a similar niche and 301 redirecting […]
April 11th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Last year, we had someone use an ‘anti linkmarketing’ technique against one of our websites. Another example of negative SEO and what it can do.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
{QUOTE}Is it unethical for Walmart to browbeat suppliers into lowering their prices, enter a new city with low prices to kill off the competition, only to raise them once everyone else is out of business? {/QUOTE}
Yes. What kind of society do you want to live in?
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Google should really change their
policy on this.
It would be too easy to get banned by a competitor using widgetbait against you
January 28th, 2009 at 4:33 am
[…] Re: Can you Destroy Your SERP Competitor with Inbound links… (I don’t think so) do you? Unfortunately, negative SEO isn’t impossible … Why is Negative SEO Becoming More Common? : Slightly Shady SEO […]