Negative SEO: Past, Present and Future - ThinkVis 2013

(Past, Present and) Future

@irishwonder ThinkVisibility, March 2013

  Matt Cutts acknowledges the fact: 2007, Forbes  
http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/28/negative-search-google-tech-ebiz-cx_ag_0628seo.html

“

”
  Google acknowledges the fact again: webmaster
answer updated May 2012 
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34449 

“There's almost nothing a “Google works hard to prevent
competitor can do to harm other webmasters from being able
your ranking“ to harm your ranking”
  Cygnus: Stop Questioning Negative SEO  
http://www.seobook.com/stop-questioning-negative-seo


  Google Bowling
  Google Bombs

  Google Washing
  SEO Sabotage

  Negative SEO
  …and even online reputation management


  External factors have influence on a site’s
rankings
  Poor attribution of duplicate content
  Site owners make mistakes


  Take anything that potentially has a negative
effect and use it against a third party site


  The concept of links as votes is the
cornerstone of Google’s algorithm


  Use of anchor texts (Google bombs, Penguin)
  Quality of links (spammy, bad
neighbourhoods)
  Objectionable types of links (e.g. paid links)

  Speed of link acquisition
  Other unnatural patterns


Bonus: How to spot a possible negative SEO campaign using MajesticSEO:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-use-majesticseo-to-identify-a-possible
-negative-seo-campaign-by-irish-wonder/56921/


  Use of anchor texts can be subtler, e.g. more
aggressive use of commercially meaningful
anchor texts the site is already targeting
  Pro: more difficult to spot, more difficult to
prove
  Con: may work in favour of the victim site


  As a result:

Complete case study by Danny Sullivan:  
http://searchengineland.com/how-prweb-helps-distribute-crap-into-google-news-
sites-140597


My “click here” case study:

(the complete study: http://www.stateofsearch.com/a-click-here-case-study/)


What’s spammier?

vs


What’s spammier?

vs

A comment spammer in local SERPs Interflora


  A niche-specific criterion

Spammy links not stopping sites from ranking – multiple cases
(Complete case study: http://www.irishwonder.syndk8.co.uk/2013
/02/27/how-does-the-casino-bonus-spam-work/


  Does the site have them already? -> spam/
paid links report
  No bad links? -> acquire some!
  Too cheap to acquire links on their behalf? ->
make it look like they are doing it! (forum
posts with their name/site asking for paid
links, etc.)
  You can also make sure they get some links
from bad neighbourhoods


  …Shitty infographic time!


(Imagine these animals, erm, shitting on each other’s head)

Niches known as PPC (porn, pills, casino)

Finance

Weight loss

Travel

Education
(Disclaimer: niche allocation is approximate and for
illustrative purposes only)

Result? Penalty due to a negative SEO campaign

Again, this is a niche specific criterion


Result? Ranking in top 10 of one of the most competitive niches


  Or instead of building links, you can remove
them…
  A spike of interest caused by Penguin


  Ever got one of these?


Do you see an opportunity for negative SEO here?


  Historically: issue with content attribution
(e.g. scrapers outranking scraped sites)
  Panda’s promise: fix the issue
  Reality: Google is no better with the duplicate
content attribution today than it used to be
ages ago


  Davi

David Naylor’s original post ranking below sites that scraped/aggregated it


  Google announces that “we will begin taking
into account a new signal in our rankings: the
number of valid copyright removal notices we
receive for any given site” – August 2012 
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-algorithms.html


  Increase in takedown requests as a result:

  Complete study by Barry Schwartz:  
http://searchengineland.com/50-million-search-results-remove-from-google-this-year-by-dmca-
request-143763
  Google Transparency Report: top reported domains http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/
removals/copyright/domains/?r=all-time


  Year: 2011
  A site scrapes another site’s content
  Access to scraped content is password protected
(so not indexable)
  The offending site files a DMCA against the
originating site
  The originating site’s reported page is removed
from the SERPs, DMCA notice displayed
  The originating site hires me to investigate the
case, contacts Google with explanation
  The originating site is reinstated in the SERPs,
timeline: 2 weeks


  Year: 2012
  Site A scrapes site B
  Site C buys a sitewide links on site A
  Site A starts ranking for site B’s traffic rich
keywords above site B
  Site B files a DMCA, contacts site A’s host (but
not Google)
  Site A’s host takes action, now non-existent site
A still ranking in Google
  Site C gets a penalty, tries to use the disavow
tool, sees 1,500 links in GWMT that cannot be
removed because they do not exist


Once more to visualise this better:

Site A scrapes Site C buys a
Site A ranks higher
sitewide link on site
site B than site B
A

Site C penalised,
Site A’s host Site B files a DMCA,
cannot disavow
suspends it, site A sends to site A’s
1,500 links because
still ranking host
they do not exist

This could be a perfect negative campaign if only site B did not suffer from it itself
Fictionalised account of this case: http://01100111011001010110010101101011.co.uk/
2013/02/50-shades-of-spam/


  Indexable empty search results
  Use of insecure plugins

  Site structure causing duplicate onsite
content
  Bad redirects
  Etc.


  Bingo – your site is now about Viagra!


And it will get indexed…

…because…


  Sites get hacked
  According to Stop Badware, the three most
common types of badware affecting sites are:
◦  Malicious scripts
◦  .htaccess redirects
◦  Hidden iframes


My post on how to get rid of malware on a site: http://www.irishwonder.com/blog/
2012/07/20/site-infected-by-malware-heres-what-you-should-do/


  Sometimes these will get your site banned
even without a negative SEO campaign
  High profile example: in April 2012 SEER
Interactive got deindexed for 12 hours
because, in Wil Reynolds’ words: 

“ We relaunched our site and spiked our 404′s but since we were
ranking for our brand and a lot of our blog posts, I said who
cares, but as my friends dug through my site they found a LOT
of architectural issues, lazy crap I never thought would impact
us (and still don’t) but it is sloppy.
”
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/7-lessons-i-learned-while-being-banned
-in-google-for-12-hours


  Google Suggest


  McDonald’s asks customers to talk about
their experience, promotes a hashtag
  Result:


  Burger King Twitter Account Hacked


  HMV fired employee
vents on official
Twitter account


  Is Negative SEO ever going to go away?


NO.

  As long as there are negative factors, they
will continue to be exploited


  Faking social presence – from squatting
unclaimed profiles to hacking existing social
accounts
  Using any objectionable links (advertorials,
other kinds of paid links, guest posts when
they become the synonym of spam, anything
else Google dims as bad
  Hijacking AuthorRank
  Fake DMCAs (already happening but will likely
keep increasing)
  Fake disavow submissions


  Ranking your own site by dropping sites
above it – was possible several years ago but
more difficult now (unpredictable results)
  Negative SEO for online reputation
management – still works (with caveats)
  Negative SEO as hate campaign – possible but
not a business strategy


  You cannot make your site 100% secure
  If it’s not economically viable to run a
negative campaign against a site, it will likely
not happen


  Example: BBC.co.uk

How do you hijack this link profile?


  Matt Cutts acknowledges the fact: 2007, Forbes  
http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/28/negative-search-google-tech-ebiz-cx_ag_0628seo.html
  Google acknowledges the fact again: webmaster answer updated May 2012 
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34449
  Cygnus: Stop Questioning Negative SEO  
http://www.seobook.com/stop-questioning-negative-seo
  How to spot a possible negative SEO campaign using MajesticSEO: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-
to-use-majesticseo-to-identify-a-possible-negative-seo-campaign-by-irish-wonder/56921/
  PRWeb case study by Danny Sullivan:  
http://searchengineland.com/how-prweb-helps-distribute-crap-into-google-news-sites-140597
  "Click here" case study: http://www.stateofsearch.com/a-click-here-case-study/
  Casino bonus spam case study: http://www.irishwonder.syndk8.co.uk/2013/02/27/how-does-the-casino-
bonus-spam-work/
  Google DMCA announcement: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-
algorithms.html
  Complete DMCA case study by Barry Schwartz:  
http://searchengineland.com/50-million-search-results-remove-from-google-this-year-by-dmca-
request-143763
  Google Transparency Report: top reported domains http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/
copyright/domains/?r=all-time
  Fiction story covering a DMCA case: http://01100111011001010110010101101011.co.uk/2013/02/50-
shades-of-spam/
  How to get rid of malware on a site: http://www.irishwonder.com/blog/
  2012/07/20/site-infected-by-malware-heres-what-you-should-do/
  SEER Interactive 12-hour ban: http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/7-lessons-i-learned-while-being-banned
  -in-google-for-12-hours


  All images are mine, except for the following:
Slide 11 - http://www.lunametrics.com/
Slide 30 - http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/
Slide 32 - http://www.rainingpackets.com
Slide 33 - http://searchengineland.com/
Slide 47 - http://gizmodo.com/
Slide 48 - http://www.businessinsider.com/


•  info@irishwonder.com
•  Twitter: @irishwonder
•  Facebook:  
http://www.facebook.com/irishwonder
•  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/irishwonder


Negative SEO: Past, Present and Future - ThinkVis 2013

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