The Beginner’s Guide to Monitoring, Fighting and Preventing Negative SEO

The Beginner’s Guide to Monitoring, Fighting and Preventing Negative SEO

I’ve even seen SEOs trying to attack Forbes’ search rankings by linking to it from malicious websites. Collect the list of bad spammy backlinks in one place – Use a professional backlink checking tool like Ahrefs to scan your website’s backlinks. If you don’t get an answer or the link isn’t removed, sometimes contacting the company hosting the website can work. So email the webmasters of the spammy websites first. You’ll receive alerts for malware attacks, server connectivity problems, a manual Google penalty and even if your website pages aren’t getting indexed. Track your backlink profile using MonitorBacklinks.com – As I mentioned before, building low quality backlinks to your website is the most common negative SEO attack. If you find that a webmaster removes the link to your website, you’ll know immediately. Monitor your social media brand mentions – Mention is a great tool to dive into conversations about your company and competitors happening on various social media platforms. Link Alerts also allows you to export your bad backlinks so that you can upload them later at Google Webmaster Tools (disavow file). It finds the contact info of spammy backlink website owners and sends them automatic link removal requests.

Stay on Top of Your Site’s SEO Ranking for Less Than $30
5 Essential SEO Tips That Have Helped HubSpot Become an Organic Powerhouse
6 Undeniable Signs You Need to Invest in Video
seo

Google released the Penguin algorithm back in April, 2012. And, ever since this release, the searches for the term ‘negative SEO’ have been on a rise.

You might have questions or read articles on subjects like:

  • Can you destroy a website’s rankings by building bad backlinks from adult and gambling websites?
  • Do you actually need to shield your website from getting slammed by a negative attack?

Unfortunately, the answer to all the above questions is….

Yes.

Why else would Google release a disavow tool and offer webmasters to report a negative attack on webmaster forums?

Look, Google has a really talented pool of learned engineers that are consistently improving the search algorithm. And, without a doubt, the search engine is getting really smarter every day.

Still your website can experience a fall in search rankings as a result of a negative SEO attack.

Just do a search for ‘negative SEO’ at fiverr. You’ll see tons of freelancers ready to attack a website by building hundreds of thousands of backlinks for a measly $5.

image66

Even Google has changed its stance on competitors harming your website.

image24

But why have negative SEO tactics started gaining prominence after the Penguin update?

The reason is – this update cracked down on websites using shady links to manipulate Google’s rankings. Although black hat SEO has a fading relevance now, negative SEO tactics remain effective.

I’ve even seen SEOs trying to attack Forbes’ search rankings by linking to it from malicious websites. They don’t succeed because Forbes has a very authoritative domain.

That might not be the case with a fairly new or a less established website. Your website can get hit by a spam post linking to your website.

image45

So, in this article, I want to help you combat negative SEO. I also want to introduce you to strategies for preventing your website from an attack. I’ll show you some tools you can use to ensure nothing nefarious happens to your website’s profile.

3 necessary steps to combat negative SEO

It has already happened.

Your website has lost search traffic or you’ve received a notification from Google.

Now what?

How can you reverse the effects of the negative SEO campaign?

image07

The first thing you should do is remove any malware from your server and make it more secure. You can buy SiteLock or a similar product/service to fix such issues. You should also consider shifting to a more professional host so that there aren’t any holes in your website’s security.

Once you fix your server security issues, you can follow these 3 steps to combat the most common types of negative SEO.

1. Collect the list of bad spammy backlinks in one place – Use a professional backlink checking tool like Ahrefs to scan your website’s backlinks.

image18

Filter the irrelevant, spammy and over-optimized anchor text backlinks.

image31

Then prepare a list of names and email addresses of the webmasters of these bad backlinks.

If a webmaster’s email address isn’t publicly listed, you can attempt to extract their contact info using the whois tool.

image36

Look for the registrant’s email in the information that appears on searching.

2. Use a law firm’s letterhead to send a removal request to webmasters – Don’t send generic emails with removal requests to spammy website owners. You’ll get extremely low or even zero response rates.

I’ve observed that legal letterheads work much better. Ask permission from your law firm, use their logo and then send the link removal request mails.

Here are tips by Marie Haynes from Search Engine Land on sending link removal request emails.

image67

If you don’t get an answer or the link isn’t removed, sometimes contacting the company hosting the website can work.

You can find out the hosting company of a website at WhoIsHostingThis.com.

image26

3. The last resort is Google’s disavow tool – Your requests got ignored by the website and by the hosting company, but don’t give up yet.

Google has released a Disavow tool in its suite of webmaster tools. Using it, you can submit the bad links to Google and ask them not to count those specific links for assessing your website.

image34

Sujan mentions the 3 necessary types of information you should include in your disavow text file.

image50

Here is an example disavow.txt file that you can model.

image39

If you’ve a premium Ahrefs subscription, disavowing is extremely easy.

image16

You can even create a list of your spammy backlinks and upload them in bulk directly to Webmaster tools.

image62

But you shouldn’t jump on this disavow tool directly. Google wants you to take action first. So email the webmasters of the spammy websites first.

Otherwise, Google isn’t going to accept your low-quality link removal requests.

Note: Please proceed with caution when using the disavow tool. Google even warns you that using the feature incorrectly can hurt your site’s performance in search results.

image27

Note 2: Disavowing bad backlinks by using the tool does not guarantee recovery in your rankings and a climb in your search traffic. But it’s like your last chance to reverse the penalty.

How to monitor your website and prevent negative SEO?

The disavow tool takes 2-4 weeks to work. And, even after that, your website will probably not return to its normal state.

The indigestible truth is:

Once you’re attacked, you’ll lose a percentage of traffic permanently, maybe some customers/subscribers and probably some authority in the eyes of Google.

So prevention is much better than combating or fixing negative SEO. Here are 5 steps you can take today to monitor your website and prevent any malicious activity from happening.

1. Setup email notifications from Google Webmaster Tools – First connect your website with Google Webmaster Tools. Opt for receiving email alerts from the Webmaster tool preferences under your account.

image44

Enabling email notifications…

COMMENTS

WORDPRESS: 0
DISQUS: 0