What It Is & How to Prevent Attacks

What Is Negative SEO?

Negative SEO (sometimes known as adverse SEO) is a malicious attempt to harm a business’s visibility in search engine results, typically with the aim of stealing its keyword rankings and traffic.

The idea is to make the target website look like it’s using SEO spam tactics that violate search engine policies. And therefore trigger the search engine into suppressing its results.

Or make the business look bad to human users. So they don’t click through.

Negative SEO is unethical and can be illegal in certain cases.

It also tends to be ineffective. Because search engines are getting better at spotting—and ignoring—negative SEO attacks.

For years, Google spokespeople have advised webmasters to ignore threats and attacks. And instead focus on making their site better.

So, if you notice a decline in keyword rankings or organic traffic, it’s unlikely that negative SEO is to blame.

That said, many marketers believe attacks can harm a business’s rankings and reputation. So you should be aware of the different types and how to deal with them.

7 Types of Negative SEO Attacks

Below are some of the most common types of negative SEO attacks.

We’ll explain how to identify, address, and prevent these attacks.

1. Hacking

Hackers can gain unauthorized access to a website and harm its SEO in a variety of ways.

For example, they might:

• Delete or deface your content
• Redirect your URLs to spammy pages
• Inject malicious code that harms your users

This type of negative...