Hit by Negative SEO
-
I've seen some discussion here about whether or not negative seo is real.
I've just spent 6 months recovering from Penguin, rewriting content, removing hundreds of bad links, and seeing our traffic slowly improve.
Yesterday we noticed in Google webmasters tools that we're ranking for the term "Free Sex." Here... http://screencast.com/t/ezoo2sCRXQ
Now we have discovered that thousands of "sex" links have been directed at our improving domain. I am convinced I know who the culprit is.
What would you advise a client to do in my situation?
Forget about removing these damn links. I don't have the time, money or energy to go through that again. I'm sure he can add them much faster than I can ever remove them.
Is the disavow tool best answer in this case? Or is there an international court of seo justice that I can appeal to?
-
Just a followup to this old thread for anyone working through similar issues.
We are monitoring what Google finds through their "Download Latest Links." We add the domains where the bad links are to the Disavow Links tool.
Google no longer ranks the site for any "sex" terms. No warnings have been issued to the site in 4 months. Things are stable at the moment, but we're going to be picking the lint out of this link list for a long time.
-
So send a note to the webspam team? I'm not into public shaming. I don't think these guys have any shame.
It's pretty obvious to me based on my history with a certain company. There's only about four of us in this particular niche. Lo and behold, only 3 of us were spammed ( I saw in some of the web spam that 2 other competitors were often linked to from the same page). They targeted a very specific page on my site, so that tells me clearly the keywords they are trying to knock me down for. Given this other company's history of aggressive tactics (spamming our blog posts, spamming comments on shareware sites where we are listed, spamming our ratings and simultaneously saying their product is better, building out dozens of EMD sites, etc etc), given that some of the spam was in their native language, and that I recognize some of the aliases they have used in the past, I have a pretty strong hunch I know who I'm dealing with.
My hope is that nothing happens to my serp so they won't be encouraged to keep doing it. That's the real danger I see; if it works, certainly they'll keep doing it.
-
That's an awesome idea. It wouldn't be difficult for them to algorithmically verify that your site is totally not relevant for a given query.
-
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I spent about 5 hours yesterday picking out bad links from good, and sent them to Google through their disavow tool.
I wondered how this could happen (I guess I live in Candy Land) and it took me about 2 minutes to find people on Fiverr selling 25,000 "bad links" for $5. That's scary, and it seems Google has wrought this with Penguin. I can't work this hard everytime someone wants to spend $5.
My hope is that my site withstands the attack. So far so good, really, but it sure is annoying when you're trying hard to clean things up and do the right thing going forward.
Maybe Google should offer a Disavow Query tool, whereby you could tell it if certain queries are misdirecting traffic to your site. That way I could let them know at the front end that my site has nothing to do with "free sex."
-
Brian and IPRO both suggest that you use the disavow links tool that Google recently rolled out. That may wind up being the answer in the long run but Matt Cutts, in a recent GoogleWebmasterHelp video, seems to stress the fact that this tool should be used after exhausting other link-removal attempts.
Barry, over at seroundtable, has a straight forward write up about this on his blog and even includes a sample (quoted below) of what it is he thinks Google is looking for in a disavow action.
Here is a link to the specific article I am speaking of: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-link-tool-15848.html
I know you want a quick and relatively painless fix, but Google tends to be vague in that regard and I doubt, unfortunately, that such a fix exists in a situation like this.
*Contact those who run the sites where the links are coming from, and keep a record of your interaction with them.
*E-mail all relevant parties until you get some sort of answer, positive or negative. If you get no response make a note of that.
*Contact Google with a spam report (probably won't get a non-automated response quickly or at all), and make a note of your report submissions/
*If none of these, or other methods I am sure I must be leaving out, solve the issue, format and submit a detailed disavow file.
WIsh I could offer the silver bullet but, as far as I am aware, that bullet has yet to exist.
-
" I am convinced I know who the culprit is." I would tell a client to spend a bit of time sleuthing for evidence to corroborate that confident assertion. If you can flesh out a very strong case, I would then take it to Google spam team, and possibly talk to an attorney about sending a "we're on to you" letter. There's no criminal case, but a civil judgment need only show that they took actions that hurt you. The mere act of calling them out and threatening a suit will probably stop the abuse (well, unless you're dealing with a sociopath).
Definitely disavow the toxic links when necessary though...
-
Yeah, I'd agree with that - disavow sounds like a good bet.
-
If you're 100% sure who did it, and you're willing to put yourself out there and name-and-shame, you can do that. I'm not sure that's in your best interests, though. I would just keep a close eye on the situation and disavow aggressively.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How much value does these have on SEO?
how much value doesn't having an address a phone numbe an https rather than http i appreciate any help.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
SEO - All topic related pages in same directory?
Hey Mozzers, How would you structure the following pages for SEO. The site is a multi-product / multi-topic site, but all pages in this example are based on a single topic - CRM Software: CRM Software product CRM Software related blog post 1 CRM Software related blog post 2 CRM Software related blog post 3 CRM Software downloadable resource 1 CRM Software downloadable resource 2 CRM Software downloadable resource 3 I know building directory pyramids is a bit old hat nowadays, but I still see the odd website organising the above pages, as follows: /crm-software /crm-software/crm-blog-post-1 /crm-software/crm-blog-post-2 /crm-software/crm-blog-post-3 /crm-software/crm-resource-1 /crm-software/crm-resource-2 /crm-software/crm-resource-3 However, I'm more inclined to apply a more logical structure, as follows: /crm-software /blog/crm-blog-post-1 /blog/crm-blog-post-2 /blog/crm-blog-post-3 /resources/crm-resource-1 /resources/crm-resource-2 /resources/crm-resource-3 What would you say is SEO best practice? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Zoope0 -
Red Square SEO Backlinking Service. Does Anyone Have Any FeedBack On Them?
Ive done quite a bit of research and I'm strongly considering using a back linking service to speed up my rankings. The one I found to be the best is Red Square SEO, do any of you guys have any feedback on them? Heres their website. http://www.redsquareseo.net
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Voltron0 -
Please Correct This on-site SEO strategy w/ respect to all the updates
Hello, I believe my on-site SEO process that I used to use a couple of years ago is not working well anymore for a couple of my sites, including this one. I'll tell you the old strategy as well as my new strategy and I'm wondering if you can give me pointers that will help us rank where we should rank with our PA and DA instead of getting moved down because of what could be our old on-site SEO. OLD ON-SITE SEO STRATEGY: Title tags usually match the page, but title tags occasionally on this site don't match the pages exactly. There's not many of them, but they do still exist in a couple of places. Title tags are either 1. A phrase describing the page 2. Keywords 1, Keyword 2 3. Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 4. Keywords 1, Keyword 2, branding The keywords are in the h1 and h2 of each main page, at the very top of the page. The h1 and h2 do not exactly copy the title tag, but are a longer phrase with the keywords appearing in their exact word order or in word variations. See this page for an example. Keywords occur 3-4 times in the body of the main pages (the pages with a menu link). Right now some of the pages have the exact phrases 3 or 4 times and no variation. meta description tags have exact keyword phrases once per keyword. Meta description tag are a short paragraph describing the page. No meta keyword tags, but a couple haven't been deleted yet. FUTURE ON-SITE SEO STRATEGY: I'm going to change all of the page titles to make sure they match the content they're on exactly. If the title is a phrase describing a page, I'm going to make sure a variation of that phrase occurs at least three times in the content, and once in the meta description tag. Title tags will be either a. Short phrase exactly matching page b. Keyword 1, Keyword 2 | branding c. Keyword 1 | branding 2. I'm thinking about taking out the H1 and H2 and replacing them with one tag that is a phrase describing the page that I'll sometimes put the keyword phrase in, only a variation in it and not the exact keyword phrase - unless it just makes total sense to use the keyword phrase exactly. **I'm thinking of only using the keyword phrase in it's exact words once on the page unless it occurs more naturally, and to include the keyword phrase in word variations two more times. So once (in non-exact word order) in the at the top, once (exact word order) in the text, and two more times (varied word orders) somewhere in the text. All this will be different if the keywords show up naturally in the text. **3. I'll delete all meta keyword tags, and still use exact keyword phrases in meta description tag, though I'll change the meta description tags to always very closely match what the page is about. Do you think my new strategy will make a difference? Your thoughts on any of this?****
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Purchasing Expired Domains for SEO Value?
While doing competitive research for a client I have stumbled on a "site developed by" footer link for a fairly established business that points to an expired domain. I'm inclined to notify the business in question that the link is expired BUT I was curious to get some thoughts on if purchasing this domain and redirecting it to my site or another would be a good purely "SEO tactic" as it would seemingly pass "juice"??? Thanks, Dave
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DavidGadarian0 -
Explain To Me How Negative SEO ISNT Real?
I'm seeing lots of "offers" springing up to do negative SEO on your competitors. I know people keep insisting this sort of thing is just a bogeyman, but follow my logic here: We know the Penguin update PENALIZED, and not just devalued "over optimization." Read: exact match keyword links. We know that if your link profile is too "unnaturally" keyword heavy, (it should be majority your brand or your domain or your company name, etc) you get penalized. Again, not devalued, PENALIZED. Ok. So what is to stop a blackhatter from using one of those software bots to just kill a competitor? Knowing the above two points, lets say a website is ranking for "cool widgets". Why not just create a bunch of exact match keyword spam links for "cool widgets" targeting that website. In a while, the Penguin penalty kicks in and bammo. The thing that scares me about the post Penguin landscape is that google has specifically named an activity ("over optimization") that will get you PENALIZED. So, don't do that, right? Except, that means they've explicitly outlined an activity that will be penalized, and is easy for others to do to you, and that you would be powerless to prevent. I await the usual "this is an age old worry that has never come true" replies. But if you reply that way, ask yourself, can you refute the logic of the points above? And also... oh no... It's happening. I'm seeing it.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | brianmcc1 -
Is this SEO correct?
Please view website http://www.staddonsbeds.co.uk. In the footer is the keywords the client is aiming for. These pages have been created separately to the sitemap. Is this tactic and pages white hat seo or is this considered black hat seo such as gateway pages? Could you please confirm Thanks Paul
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | paulbaguley0 -
Is it possible that since the Google Farmer's Update, that people practicing Google Bowling can negatively affect your site?
We have hundreds of random bad links that have been added to our sites across the board that nobody in our company paid for. Two of our domains have been penalized and three of our sites have pages that have been penalized. Our sites are established with quality content. One was built in 2007, the other in 2008. We pay writers to contribute quality and unique content. We just can't figure out a) Why the sites were pulled out of Google indexing suddenly after operating well for years b) Where the spike in links came from. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dahnyogaworks0