The entire SEO industry experienced a major transformation over the past two years. As a result, many online marketers have dramatically changed their strategies. Ranking high in Google for competitive keywords is not as easy as it was three years ago.
Because black hat SEO is harder and harder to execute, and less and less likely to deliver results, a new type of SEO has emerged called “negative SEO.”
This is a guide that will help you understand what negative SEO is and how you can protect your business from becoming a victim. If you are serious about building your brand online and keeping it safe, this is something you should not ignore.
What is Negative SEO?
Negative SEO refers to the practice of using black hat and unethical techniques to sabotage a competitor’s rankings in search engines. Negative SEO attacks can take a number of different forms:
- Hacking your website
- Building hundreds or thousands of spammy links to your website
- Copying your content and distributing it all over the internet
- Pointing links to your website using keywords like Viagra, poker online, and many others
- Creating fake social profiles and ruining your reputation online.
Check out Matt Cutts’s answer to negative SEO:
How to Prevent Negative SEO Attacks
1. Set up Google Webmaster Tools Email Alerts
Google can send you email alerts when:
- Your website is being attacked by malware
- Your pages are not indexed
- You have server connectivity problems
- You get a manual penalty from Google
2. Keep Track of Your Backlinks Profile
This is the most important action to take to prevent spammers from succeeding. Most often, they will perform negative SEO against your website by building low quality links or redirects. It is vitally important to know when someone is creating links or redirects to your website.
3. Secure Your Website from Malware and Hackers
Security is extremely important. The last thing you want is spam on your website without you even knowing about it. There are several things you can do to secure 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 be required to add a code generated by Google Authenticator on your smartphone (available on iOS and Android).
- Create a strong password with numbers and special characters.
- Create backups of your files and database on a regular basis.
them how you can install antivirus to prevent malware.
4. Check for Duplicate Content
One of the most common techniques spammers use is content duplication. They copy your website content and post it everywhere they can. If most of your content is duplicated, there’s a big possibility that your website will be penalized and lose rankings.
check here : Copyscape.com.
Conclusion
Website security and search engine impressions are extremely important for any website that wants to succeed. This is a summary of the things you can do to prevent negative SEO:
prevent negative SEO:
- Create email alerts from Google Webmaster Tools.
- Track your backlinks profile and get email alerts when you get new links, with tools likeMonitorBacklinks.com.
- Secure your website from malware and hackers. Use the Google Authenticator plugin for WordPress.
- Check for duplicate content with Copyscape.com
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