The world of internet marketing has become highly competitive. Not only can it be difficult for even large, well established corporations to stay ahead, but small local businesses often find themselves fighting for the attention of potential customers in their community. While many businesses hire professionals to boost their SEO ranking, there are some who are taking a different approach. A few businesses prefer to wage a dirty war with their competitors by using devious and even illegal actions to destroy websites in their industry or niche. While it is highly frowned upon by the professional community, the practice is unfortunately becoming more prevalent. It's becoming more important for business owners to maintain the integrity of their online presence by protecting their site from negative SEO. Here's a few tips to help you navigate the world of negative SEO, so you can take steps to keep your site and your search engine rankings secure.
First Step: Sign Up for Alerts
You can't combat negative SEO if you aren't aware that it's happening to you. That's why your very first action should be signing up for Google Webmaster Tools email alerts. Doing so will ensure you know right away when you're having connectivity issues, your website is being attacked by malware, you get a penalty, or your pages have stopped being indexed. To do this, simply go log in to your Google account, go to Google Webmaster Tools and click on Webmaster Tools Preferences. Enable your email notifications and be sure to save your changes before logging out.
