Negative SEO: what it is, how to detect it and combat it
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2025 8:48 am
Negative SEO attacks can negatively affect our visibility in search engines. In this post you will find the keys to identify and combat them.
Note: in this post many technical SEO concepts will be used. If you are not used to them, here is our SEO dictionary
1. Negative SEO: what it is
In some sectors where there is a lot of competition to occupy organic positions, there are situations in which some actors use non-regulatory weapons to climb positions. Within these weapons that we commonly call Black Hat , the vast majority are intended to benefit the positions of the project or client that carries them out. However, there are also very bad techniques aimed at harming their rivals in the SERPs. We call this set of practices negative SEO .
2. How do I know if I have received negative SEO?
It is not always easy to detect negative SEO attacks , and often when you realize it, it may be too late.
In general terms, we can say that if you are doing things right at the SEO level (code, server, content, links...) and you notice a sudden drop in search engine rankings, you should be suspicious. If you are not doing it indonesia telegram data completely right, it will be more difficult to detect the reason for this drop.
Keep in mind that sharp drops in Google that come from negative SEO could become a manual or algorithmic penalty from Google. In the first case, it will be easier for you, since you will receive an alert from Google Search Console notifying you, and you will have ways to argue and reverse this situation.
However, if it is an algorithmic penalty , then you must identify the type of negative SEO you have received and act accordingly. In this article, we will analyze the most common ones:
3. The main negative SEO attacks
3.1. Toxic links
This is the most common negative SEO practice and also one of the easiest to detect. It consists of competitors manually or automatically inserting links to our website on pages with a dubious reputation. Normally, these are Russian websites, abandoned forums, pornography websites, etc. To detect it, you must use an inbound link detection tool such as Ahrefs . We recommend listing these domains periodically and uploading them to the Google Disavow link disavow tool . There is some debate about the extent to which Google would already have listed the websites that do SPAM and negative SEO and would not take them into account, but as a precaution, we recommend disavowing them since it will not do us any harm.
3.2. Anchor text manipulation
We have explained in a previous post how we use anchor texts to tell Google what will be found in the destination link that we place. Well, in a negative SEO attack, what they do is put links with anchor texts with a theme that is very different from ours. Let's imagine that we have an SEO project in which we intend to position a URL for the keyword "balls", and our competitor puts links in dozens of websites with the anchor text "fake watches". This will lead Googlebot to a thematic confusion that will dilute the ranking of my URL.
3.3. Identity theft
We are at the highest level of piracy, but you should know that it exists. In this case, a competitor impersonates our identity and asks webmasters where we get links to our website to edit or delete them. This is difficult to detect, but with a good tool to monitor incoming links and a good alert system you will do it. When you notice it, you should contact the webmaster to reverse it. And if you identify the person who impersonated you, we leave it up to you to decide what actions to take
negative seo
3.4. DDOS Server Attacks
In this case, which is more hacker-like than negative SEO, the attacker would seek to saturate our server by means of many requests for resources from our website (normally Chinese, Indian or Russian robots) that take down the server in the eyes of the user and Google.
To prevent these attacks, it is always advisable to have a quality hosting, which is scalable and has prevention against these situations, and always have a copy of our website at hand, and have a CDN service such as Cloudflare that maintains a live copy of the website while we recover from the attack. If things get complicated or chronic there, it would be advisable to contact a company specialized in cybersecurity such as Océano IT .
Note: in this post many technical SEO concepts will be used. If you are not used to them, here is our SEO dictionary
1. Negative SEO: what it is
In some sectors where there is a lot of competition to occupy organic positions, there are situations in which some actors use non-regulatory weapons to climb positions. Within these weapons that we commonly call Black Hat , the vast majority are intended to benefit the positions of the project or client that carries them out. However, there are also very bad techniques aimed at harming their rivals in the SERPs. We call this set of practices negative SEO .
2. How do I know if I have received negative SEO?
It is not always easy to detect negative SEO attacks , and often when you realize it, it may be too late.
In general terms, we can say that if you are doing things right at the SEO level (code, server, content, links...) and you notice a sudden drop in search engine rankings, you should be suspicious. If you are not doing it indonesia telegram data completely right, it will be more difficult to detect the reason for this drop.
Keep in mind that sharp drops in Google that come from negative SEO could become a manual or algorithmic penalty from Google. In the first case, it will be easier for you, since you will receive an alert from Google Search Console notifying you, and you will have ways to argue and reverse this situation.
However, if it is an algorithmic penalty , then you must identify the type of negative SEO you have received and act accordingly. In this article, we will analyze the most common ones:
3. The main negative SEO attacks
3.1. Toxic links
This is the most common negative SEO practice and also one of the easiest to detect. It consists of competitors manually or automatically inserting links to our website on pages with a dubious reputation. Normally, these are Russian websites, abandoned forums, pornography websites, etc. To detect it, you must use an inbound link detection tool such as Ahrefs . We recommend listing these domains periodically and uploading them to the Google Disavow link disavow tool . There is some debate about the extent to which Google would already have listed the websites that do SPAM and negative SEO and would not take them into account, but as a precaution, we recommend disavowing them since it will not do us any harm.
3.2. Anchor text manipulation
We have explained in a previous post how we use anchor texts to tell Google what will be found in the destination link that we place. Well, in a negative SEO attack, what they do is put links with anchor texts with a theme that is very different from ours. Let's imagine that we have an SEO project in which we intend to position a URL for the keyword "balls", and our competitor puts links in dozens of websites with the anchor text "fake watches". This will lead Googlebot to a thematic confusion that will dilute the ranking of my URL.
3.3. Identity theft
We are at the highest level of piracy, but you should know that it exists. In this case, a competitor impersonates our identity and asks webmasters where we get links to our website to edit or delete them. This is difficult to detect, but with a good tool to monitor incoming links and a good alert system you will do it. When you notice it, you should contact the webmaster to reverse it. And if you identify the person who impersonated you, we leave it up to you to decide what actions to take
negative seo
3.4. DDOS Server Attacks
In this case, which is more hacker-like than negative SEO, the attacker would seek to saturate our server by means of many requests for resources from our website (normally Chinese, Indian or Russian robots) that take down the server in the eyes of the user and Google.
To prevent these attacks, it is always advisable to have a quality hosting, which is scalable and has prevention against these situations, and always have a copy of our website at hand, and have a CDN service such as Cloudflare that maintains a live copy of the website while we recover from the attack. If things get complicated or chronic there, it would be advisable to contact a company specialized in cybersecurity such as Océano IT .