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Negative SEO Does Exist

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Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#111

Post by antjanus »

vectorpush wrote: post #93
jacquesm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter so much? That's a blog, and a non-commercial one at that. Why do you care so much what your 'link profile' is? If someone copies your content, go after them, sue them if you have to and out them. Make sure that they realize that if they copy your content that it will hurt. I have absolutely no idea what if any backlinks I have to my blog, nor could I care less about it. People will read it, or mayb…

Why does it matter so much? That's a blog, and a non-commercial one at that. Why do you care so much what your 'link profile' is? Well, besides the fact that it's his prerogative to care about his blog's search ranking, I think the implications are pretty obvious; he's suggesting that if it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone, including someone who does have a commercial interest.

That's one thing another thing is that just because my blog is non-commercial doesn't mean it shouldn't rank. I monetized it recently and would like to continue making some cash off it (to cover costs and as an incentive and excuse to continue doing this). On top of that, I like to write, the more people read my shit, the more I'm excited to write.

What sucks about this entire dilemma is that we're all looking at "lost revenue", no one is looking at "quality content going down the drain". Good search results disappear and are replaced by someone who has a ton of cash backing them whose content is meant to convert and monetize, make cash off the user and nothing else.

At least in my case, I want people to primarily read my stuff.

And it seems ridiculous to me that someone would say, "Who cares if people read your blog, it's not as if you're making any money off it!"

Can you imagine some of the most popular devs that have non-monetized blogs all of a sudden disappearing from google search with their insights and answers? Among others, there's Jeff Atwood and Scott Hanselman both of whom rank well but have non-monetized sites.

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#112

Post by jacquesm »

DontBeADick wrote: post #109
jacquesm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter so much? That's a blog, and a non-commercial one at that. Why do you care so much what your 'link profile' is? If someone copies your content, go after them, sue them if you have to and out them. Make sure that they realize that if they copy your content that it will hurt. I have absolutely no idea what if any backlinks I have to my blog, nor could I care less about it. People will read it, or mayb…

Are you really trying to pretend that you don't care if people read your blog even though you link to it here all the time? If there were an olympic event for mental gymnastics, you'd be dominating right now.

> Are you really trying to pretend that you don't care if people read your blog even though you link to it here all the time?

I checked to see if you have a point here, I submitted exactly one link out of the last 30 or so to my own site, the rest have been posted by others. If we go back 60 links that's approximately 300 days and there are still only 2 links, and both of these were in response to HN content, either articles or comment threads.

Suggest you re-read my original comment and then take your own nick as advice.

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#113

Post by sudorank »

Negative SEO has been around for years, the mainstream SEO community have only just realised it.

It's going to be at-least another year until the exact methods are discovered though because of the reasons I detailed here:

http://www.sudorank.com/rand-fishkin-wont-ever-see-negative-...

Until then people's businesses will be burned and Google won't really do much about it, always slow to react!

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#114

Post by newaccountfool »

logicallee wrote: post #44

I think there's a very good argument to be made that negative SEO should be illegal, with punishment/compensation similar to that of slander and libel in the United States. (Which are incredibly specific, due to free speech issues.) Why should slander and libel be illegal at all - why can't anyone say, claim, or publish anything they want whatsoever? If you reflect on that the reason is fairly obvious. Likewise, if n…

Making it illegal where? Worldwide? This is a ridiculous idea.

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#115

Post by Fuzzwah »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #101
jacquesm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your thought experiment. Check out elsewhere in this thread how it works in real life. Thought experiments are great when they can teach you a new insight about how something actually works (for instance, Einstein and the elevator), but when they describe an alternate reality then they are less useful. If you have a problem with signs near an intersection you petition the city council without touching the sign…

You're doing very strange things to the analogy. To be closer to the real activities, it's like putting a bunch of red flags under the sign. Nobody (except the city coucil) actually touches the target sign. Nobody actually touches the target website. There is no direct attacking going on.

The road is diverted so that people driving on the road can no longer see the sign.....

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#116

Post by newaccountfool »

rlpb wrote: post #76
Ryan_Jones wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This takes us down a very slippery slope. Linking, is not illegal and I think we can all agree that the web would be ruined if simply adding a link to a site you own or control were made illegal. So that raises the question: How do you determine what's a good link or a bad link? Pretty soon you'd have people arrested for linking to somebody's site from a news article or to/from sites like ripoffreport.

> How do you determine what's a good link or a bad link? By intent. Intent is something that law has always considered. No need for an exception here.

What happens if I write an article about how shit McDonalds is, like really bad and post information about the mistreatment of animals, or the horrible practices that they follow and in this article I link to them. I mean I'm writing this article so that people stay away from McDonalds because I feel its damaging to their health. Would a link to there website on that article be illegal?

p.s. Just an example, I love Mcdonalds.

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#117

Post by Isofarro »

gscott wrote: post #79

I have tested negative seo to force a couple of websites out of listing positions that I had once and it works fine. What you do is buy multiple 50k "xrumer" postings with "pingbacks" for that website you want gone. Add in some spammy Fiverr jobs plus buy some links for that website you want gone on Text-Link-Ads then report that website as having paid links. This method works 100% of the time. This creates such a fi…

"This method works 100% of the time"

How many sites did you try this on? One?

In your existing setup, how many competitors could you take out now before Google notices the pattern you've adopted? Take a look at the footprint:

* Site suddenly acquires a new batch of incoming links

* Same site is reported for being a recipient of a paid-for links scheme

* Reporter uses the email address of (your email address here) -- I love the dichotomy of blackhats despising/hating Google, yet reaching out over and over again pretending to be a good citizen.

How many times and variations of that can you come up with before standing out? And when the pattern emerges, Google are in a position to re-address the balance.

This switch Google has done from inaction to penalty for spammy links has changed the spamming game. No positive benefit from spamming is a good thing. Spammers can only create negative damage with their existing setup, until they out themselves by being trackable/detectable.

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#118

Post by mfjordvald »

jacquesm wrote: post #88
antjanus wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to look at it in another way. I've a small blog, one that I love running, it makes barely any money, but for a long time ranked for some pretty good keywords. Anyways, a few of my articles blew up on hackernews, reddit, even on twitter (with smashing magazine tweeting it out), as a result, everyone and their grandma linked back to my articles when they discussed the topic it targeted. What happened then? I l…

Why does it matter so much? That's a blog, and a non-commercial one at that. Why do you care so much what your 'link profile' is? If someone copies your content, go after them, sue them if you have to and out them. Make sure that they realize that if they copy your content that it will hurt. I have absolutely no idea what if any backlinks I have to my blog, nor could I care less about it. People will read it, or mayb…

As someone with a blog, the size of my audience matters a lot, knowing I actually have people reading what I put out there matters a lot. Having people interact with my content or tell me it helped them sure does motivate me as well.

If I lost my search engine traffic that'd account for half of my daily traffic. (only around 500-600 people so not huge) If that happened that'd be pretty demotivating.

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#119

Post by lilsunnybee »

jacquesm wrote: post #85
lilsunnybee wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that a lot of small businesses are on the internet too, whose owners often don't understand how all this stuff works, and have just hired an SEO consultant or two in the past to help improve their Google search ranking, with no ill intentions other than trying to get more visibility and improve business. My parents are two of these people actually, and changing the rules all of a sudden like Google did,…

I'm really sorry for your parents. That said, I think that being clueless about doing business on the internet and doing business on the internet is a combination that should not come with a guaranteed pay-out. If you then employ someone to act on your behalf (without understanding) then even though your intentions are good you could get hurt. In that sense I sympathize less with your parents than that I sympathize w…

Your assertion that SEO's are unequivocally a scummy bunch is wrong and seems pretty irrational to me. A lot of SEO is simply making sure you include good descriptions for items, include keywords, have a properly marked up site so that you are not unfairly penalized, when you have a legitimate reason to show up in results for certain search words. The fact that these SEO companies also did affiliate marketing (not spamming links on message boards and people's websites!), used to be considered pretty white hat and necessary to get any sort of ranking above page 39 or something.

Advertising via adwords and things like that is a very expensive activity, with no guarantee of increasing legitimate traffic and interested customers. Prices have increased greatly over time in most categories, and though larger businesses might have the margins where losing a few tens or hundreds of thousands here and there on ineffective advertising might not be a problem, but it disproportionately is for smaller businesses.

The biggest problem is really that Google has a pretty effective monopoly on search, and can extort whatever prices they want for advertising, and can also make widespread secret changes that pretty much affect what sites are allowed to show up on the internet and which are not.

Re: Negative SEO Does Exist

#120

Post by ProAm »

jacquesm wrote: post #88
antjanus wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to look at it in another way. I've a small blog, one that I love running, it makes barely any money, but for a long time ranked for some pretty good keywords. Anyways, a few of my articles blew up on hackernews, reddit, even on twitter (with smashing magazine tweeting it out), as a result, everyone and their grandma linked back to my articles when they discussed the topic it targeted. What happened then? I l…

Why does it matter so much? That's a blog, and a non-commercial one at that. Why do you care so much what your 'link profile' is? If someone copies your content, go after them, sue them if you have to and out them. Make sure that they realize that if they copy your content that it will hurt. I have absolutely no idea what if any backlinks I have to my blog, nor could I care less about it. People will read it, or mayb…

| Why does it matter so much? That's a blog, and a non-commercial one at that. Why do you care so much what your 'link profile' is?

Because networking is everything in life. Maintaining a good reputation, providing valuable information may not pay off immediately today, but you never know what you'll need tomorrow. If you are penalized today, you have no chance at tomorrow.

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