Did you know that there are bad SEO practices? In the world of SEO web positioning , there are many ways in which your website can be attacked. Therefore, at IBO, an SEO specialist agency, we help you detect 6 ways of negative SEO on your website, so you can repair the damage.
Let's go, step by step, what is negative SEO?
What is negative SEO?
You may have heard of negative SEO, but it’s important to define this term. Well, when we talk about negative SEO, we are referring to bad and unethical practices that can lead to a Google penalty . Generally, these “bad practices” are carried out by “others” with the purpose of lowering traffic, tarnishing your reputation, and even bringing down the page altogether.
And what types of negative SEO attacks exist?
You're probably wondering how my website can be attacked. Well, there are many ways in which a website can be attacked by different types of SEO attacks , which if not detected in time, can seriously affect all the SEO work you've done. Here, we show you some types of attacks:
1. Hacking your website
This is one of the most popular techniques when it comes to negative SEO. When a dental email database lists person or hacker can hack a website, it affects SEO performance. And when a website is hacked, it loses visibility in all search engines.
2. Create harmful backlinks
Another type of negative SEO attack is backlinks or bad links. Many of these bad links can appear on a website, which can cause you to lose traffic, among other consequences.
3. Extract content and duplicate it on other websites
Sometimes, it happens that in order to harm our website with a Google penalty, other people extract content from the website and then duplicate it elsewhere, and even link it with backlinks that do not exist . So, from time to time, it is advisable to perform an SEO audit .
And just as there are these types of negative SEO attacks, there are a number of attacks that can harm your website and especially your SEO positioning. But, if you want to know some ways to detect negative SEO, keep reading this article.
How to detect negative SEO on my website?
How to detect negative SEO on my website?
Let's imagine that a negative SEO attack is like an assault, it is something that does not give any warning. However, if you take the necessary care, it can be avoided in time. Therefore, we will tell you some ways to avoid negative SEO attacks .
1. Notice that there is a serious drop in web traffic
Notice that there is a serious drop in web traffic
If your website has a good percentage of web traffic and suddenly there is a very serious drop in your web traffic, you should seriously worry. This is one of the most visible symptoms, which little by little, you can detect. To do this, it is important to review your SEO strategy, analyze whether the metrics are at an adequate level or have suffered pronounced drops.
One of the most useful tools for understanding your web traffic is Google Search Console , as it provides you with data that helps you interpret the performance of your website or see if there are any changes.
2. Losing the positioning of your positioned keywords
Losing the positioning of your positioned keywords
Another cause of low web traffic is losing the positioning of your already positioned keywords . It is true that to position a keyword you must do excellent work such as SEO strategy, content, among others. Therefore, it is important to go to Google Search Console again, to have a more complete report of all your keywords.
3. Spam of possible links
Spam of possible links
Once again, remember that performing an SEO audit will allow you to find which links should not be on your website and which are not related to your topic. Having spam in your links makes it much more difficult to rank and meet your SEO goals.
For a complete analysis, you can use the Google Search Console or Open Link Profiler tool. This will help you not only get spam links, but also find referring domains that may be harmful to your website.
4. Remove your links from other websites
Remove your links from other websites
To improve SEO positioning, we often carry out a good link building strategy, which helps us build relationships with other websites. Let's imagine the case that we exchange content with another website that is related to ours. However, they receive a message indicating that the link should be removed because the exchange is no longer necessary.
Well, what happens is that other people often do this unethical practice, where they pretend to be you and write to the website to remove the content. Obviously, this will lower our traffic and other key metrics.
5. Having fake parameters in the URL
It is not a common practice, but it does happen. However, it is important to know that it is a false URL parameter. Well, these are values that are automatically added to the URL . Normally, this happens when the content is changed. To avoid this problem, it is recommended that we tell Google which is the most important page, and include a rel= canonical to the original page.
6. Complete hacking of the website
Total hacking of the website
Hacking is one of the most visible ways to detect negative SEO on your website. In fact, for this to have happened, it is likely that other people have created malicious content and that it may even affect your SEO. If you want to avoid being a victim of hacking, we recommend that you have a good hosting, that has good quality and offers security.