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.
Attacking Your Backlinks
Backlinks are one of the best ways to boost your site's SEO. One way for others to pull your ranking down is to impersonate you by sending an email to sites that are linking to yours, and asking them to delete the link.
What Can You Do?
There are many software tools available online that can help you keep track of your backlinks. MonitorBacklinks.com, Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs and Google Analytics for example are all programs that will let you see which sites are linking to yours. Check the results from time to time so you notice when one has been removed. You can then contact the website owner and ask why they removed your link.
Destroy Your Site's Speed
Hackers and web developers can effectively crash your site by sending thousands of requests to your server at one time. Even if it doesn't completely bring your site down, it could make your site's load time so slow that no one will stick around to see what you have to offer.
What Can You Do?
Sites like GTmetrix, Pingdom and Google Page Speed can help monitor your loading time. Use them every once in a while, to stay on time of your site's speed, and if you notice an unusual change, contact a professional who can fix the problem immediately.
Flooding the Internet with Your Content
A fast and easy way for negative SEO experts to attack your ranking is to copy and paste your site's content all over the internet. They can place it in comment sections of other people's blog post, in forums, or use free blogging platforms to create a site specifically for duplicating other people's content.
What Can You Do?
Use copyscape.com periodically to find out if your site's information is on another web page. If you know that your content is original and you find multiple duplications, there's a good chance that your business is under attack.
Fake Social Media Accounts
While creating fake social media accounts might not directly affect your sites search engine ranking, it can successfully destroy your reputation. In today's world, many people search Twitter, Facebook and Google + for reviews and posts before making a purchase with a new business. If someone has created a fake account and is using your businesses name in a negative way, it can reflect very poorly on your company and destroy your credibility with local customers.
What Can You Do?
You can use a website like mention.net, or simply check popular social media platforms to see if there's a page or profile with your business name. If you discover that someone has created a false account, notify them immediately.
Are You Being Attacked with Negative SEO? Contact iBoost Today
If you feel that your website's ranking is being affected by negative SEO, call the experts at iBoost right away. We will investigate to see if someone is attacking your site, and help you take measures to put a stop to it. Contact us today to find out how we can help your business. Atlanta SEO Company
