The SEO industry is a dynamic one where “change” is constant. The scenario of this industry has evolved over the years. Experience has made webmasters even more skilled and every other day they come to realize newer aspects of this field.
Until few years ago, you could escape by employing few black hat SEO tricks (although the results were short lived) and get away with keyword rankings in search engine majors. Since, the chances of attaining success with black hat SEO tricks are next to impossible these days (thanks to Google’s regular updates), the ones practicing these tricks have now resorted to what is known as “Negative SEO”.
What Is Negative SEO?
It is basically employing tactics that tarnish the image of your competitor websites by making use of unethical techniques like black hat SEO. This can take several forms as:
- Website hacking.
- Building spam links to your website in multiple numbers.
- Plagiarism.
- Link pointing to your website with words that are not popular or unethical or illegal.
- Removal of good back links that your website has.
- Opening fake social media accounts and tarnishing your image.
However, you need to address these issues promptly as it can harm your brand reputation. In this article, let us highlight few of the measures you can take to nullify the effects of negative SEO.
Tips to Address Negative SEO
Find out how you can do it:
1. Using Google Webmaster Tools/Email Alerts
You can set up email alerts from Google webmaster. In this way, you will be able to get updates related to whether or not if any malware has attached itself to your website. In order to receive such notifications, you can configure your account settings for the same.
2. Be Wary of Your Email Marketing Campaigns
Since you are in the SEO industry, online marketing is something that you cannot do without. This holds true for social media marketing or email marketing. Whenever you are sending emails to your recipients, make sure you undertake a thorough email address validation. This is achieved by email address verifier that you can use in real time and also offline. This will prevent you from sending mails to spam folders. In the event marketing emails are sent to spam folders, as a vendor you may be blacklisted treating your mails as “less important” and of “no value”. So, make sure that you direct or send your mails to the right recipients and the ones that will value your message.
3. Check Back Links on a Regular Basis
There are times when spammers redirect links of low quality to your website. In order to address these issues, you can make use of tools like Open Site Explorer that will enable you to keep track of unwanted links that are directed to your website. Ideally, you can set up email notification alerts that will warn you whenever a bad link has been directed to your website.
4. Keep Hackers and Malware at Bay
Digital mishaps like hacking and malware attack are unforeseen. As such, you can address these issues by installing Google Authenticator Plugin (provided you are making use of WordPress). It is a 2-step verification process using password that will keep your website secured to a great extent. By doing so, if you are trying to log in you will be required to enter a security code that is sent on hand-held device regardless of the device with any OS you are using.
5. Be Wary of Social Media Presence
Social media platforms serve as the ideal place where your competitors can malign your image. Oftentimes, fake accounts are created and reputation of the concerned business identity ruined. Keep track of any such account and report as spam the same when you come across one.
With excellent brand management and SEO service providers, you will be able to tackle such negative SEO issues promptly and effectively.
