Negative SEO refers to the practice of using a black hat and unethical methods to destroy the level of competitors in search engines. Negative SEO attacks can take many different forms:
- Hacking your website
- Creating hundreds or thousands of spam links on your website
- Copy your content and distribute it across the Internet
- Identify links to your website using keywords like Viagra, online poker, and many more
- Creating fake public profiles and tarnishing your reputation online
- Deleting the best backlinks your website contains.
Table of Contents
Is Wrong SEO a Real Threat?
Yes, there is no doubt about that. Wrong SEO is a reality, and many websites have had to deal with this problem. Preventing it is much easier than fixing it.
If you search Fiverr to find “wrong SEO,” you will find more than 15,000 people willing to do the job for only $ 5.
Also, black hat forums are full of stories from people who have been successful with this process.
Google has released the Disavow Tool to help webmasters deal with this problem, but the tool should be used with caution and only as a last resort.
Check out Matt Cutts’ negative response to SEO
It usually takes 2-4 weeks for the tool to work. Can you afford to have your website penalized for 1 month? No one can! I will show you how to prevent these attacks and keep your business safe.
How To Prevent Bad SEO Attacks:
Set Email Notifications for Google Webmaster Tools
- Google can send you email alerts if you:
- Your website is being attacked by malware
- Your pages are not listed
- You are having trouble connecting to the server
- You receive a fine from Google
- If you have not already done so, link your website to Google Webmaster Tools.
- Log in to your account and click on “Webmaster Tools Preferences.”
- Enable email notifications and choose to receive alerts for all types of issues. Click “Save.”This is just the first step. Now, let’s go to the main, monitor your backlinks profile.
Keep Track of Your Background Profile Links
- This is the most important step you can take to prevent spammers from succeeding. Often, they will do the wrong SEO against your website by building low-quality links or redirects. It is very important to know when someone makes links or redirects to your website.
- You can use tools like Ahrefs or Open Site Explorer, from time to time, to check for yourself that someone is building links to your website, but I recommend you use MonitorBacklinks.com. It is one of the best and easiest tools that can send you email alerts when your website gains or loses important backlinks.
- Instead of checking your backlinks every morning, Monitor Backlink sends everything you need to know to your inbox. Here’s how to use it:
- Once you have created your account, you will need to add your domain and link it to your Google Analytics account.
- It usually shows your backlinks quickly, but sometimes it can take a few minutes. By default, your settings are set to send you email notifications when your website receives new backlinks. Here is what the email alert looks like:
Protect Your Best Backlink
Usually, spam senders will try to remove your best backlinks. They usually contact the website owner of the link, using your name, and ask the webmaster to remove your backlink.
To prevent this from happening, you can do two things:
When communicating with website administrators, always use an email address from your domain, instead of using Gmail or Yahoo. This way, you will prove that you are working for the website and not someone else pretending to be you. Your email should look like this: yourname@yourdomain.com.
Track your best backlinks. To do this, you can use Monitor Backlinks as well. Go to your backlink list and organize them by Page Rank or social media activity.
Add tags to the backlinks you value the most to make sure they are removed.
Select your backlink and click “edit.”
Add your tag, so you can filter later and get these background links easily.
submit tags
After you create your list, sort them by your markers, and monitor whether their status changes. If any of these links are removed, you should contact your website administrator and ask why they removed your link.
Protect Your Website from malware and hackers
Safety is very important. The last thing you want is spam on your website unless you know it. There are a few things you can do to protect your website:
If you are using WordPress, install the Google Authenticator Plugin and create a 2-step verification password. Each time you log in to your WordPress website, you will need to add the code generated by Google Authenticator to your smartphone (available for iOS and Android).
Create a strong password with special numbers and characters.
Create backups of your files and websites regularly.
If your website allows users to upload files, talk to your hosting company and ask them how you can install an antivirus to prevent malicious software.
Examine duplicate content
One of the most common methods used by spam is duplicating content. They copy the content of your website and send it everywhere they can. If much of your content is duplicated, there is a good chance that your website will be penalized and lose rates.
You can check if your website has duplicate pages online using Copyscape.com. Just add your website or the subject of the article you want to verify, and it will show you if your content is published elsewhere, without your permission.
Monitor Your Media Specifications
In some cases, spam senders will create fake accounts on social media using your company or website name. Try deleting these profiles by reporting them as spam before they start gaining followers.
To find out who uses your brand name, you can use tools like Mement.net.
As soon as someone mentions your name on any social media platform or website, you will be notified, and you can decide if you should take action. Create an account and click “Create a warning.” Mention your warning, and then add the keywords you want to be notified about. You can also use multiple languages. Click “Next Step.”
Select the sources you want Moment.net to look at, and add the domains you want to be ignored. Click “Create My Warning,” and you will receive alerts whenever your keyword (company name) is mentioned on social media, blogs, forums, and news.
