Negative SEO is real

[inspiration]

I have a site that has been under attack by a "russian" hacker
He creates 10-20 profiles on forums with a link to my site.
Besides that he copied the index page on free hosting sites just enough for google to decrease the number of searches.
I had to use the disavow tool and contacted the hosting co. this time.
WTF !!

 

[slotplayer]

that's too bad.

 

[edgarf76]

Just disavow and move on. Thats the best you can do.

 

[lalalaenhund]

10-20 profiles? Could be a bit worse...

 

[Stevenbmt]

I agree, disavow is the best thing you can do. If your site is an old domain with good PR, i wouldnt worry.

 

[CasinoKev]

Yikes, any idea why you might have been targeted? Or is it just random?

 

[poker rock]

Is this a common practice?

 

[AussieDave]

Is this a common practice?

Zero scruples is most cases - it's a dirty industry mate!

 

[falseadoom]

they also do this in directories.

 

[Viriatu]

Is this a common practice?

Yes i been 6 months on a battle until i got a certain term back on 1# on my country tld... and i tell you it was bloody and i did not spent one dime, took some long hours and a lot of work, and i can tell you did not look like one man job on my case, it was like an orchestra with a tune, not random at all...

 

[justred]

You are lucky. We have had sites that not matter what, have not recovered from this sort of thing at all.

But we were hit with thousands of bad links. Every SEO we have spoken to has told us to just disavow. It really has done nothing. If you have copped a penalty, disavowing is too late. Your last hope is the great bug Penguin updates which now looks unlikely to ever happen again.

 

[WagerPod]

I don't worry about negative SEO because the people who usually do that spend no time on their actual site making it better and do pointless stuff like this. The only time I'm worried about negative SEO is when I've got a brand new site, usually I can shake off spam links due to the site authority but when its new it can be a shed load of work getting credibility with Google.

 

[muffincrumbs]

All of my sites have been hit more than once. Wagerpod is on point, but I do go back every three months and disavow a ton of spam links. Its takes three or four 14 hour days.

 

[justred]

Well we were unlucky then. A VERY big site of ours got hit with thousands of links and it tanked. We have not recovered and after various external pinions the consensus is that we should just move on.

One thing I have learnt: never feel to sure of yourself. Google can and does make mistakes.

 

[justred]

PS disavow is a load of crap. Write the links on a piece of paper and flush it down the toilet. That has a batter chance of doing something.

 

[CasinoKev]

Justred, how much time has passed since you disavowed the spam links? I think it can take a few months sometimes for Google to refresh major changes like that.

 

[justred]

More than 2 years for some sites.

I will believe that disavow does anything if I see hard and fast evidence of sites that full recover because of it. There is NO evidence of it really working excepts a few "case studies" by, you guessed it, SEO companies.

The SEO's use case studies but if you read them carefully there is no clear evidence that disavowing links aided recovery.

It's google's way to get webmasters to oust link networks.

I'm thinking of getting a pet parrot and calling him Disavow. Or maybe Matt. Yeah. Matt.

 

[WagerPod]

Personally I think the disavow is sent over to someone in the spam team to manually review, just to make sure their algorithm is not missing anything new, then I think if these links are disavowed already then Google will do nothing.

 

[Frank]

I think very soon Google will base quality content and user actions rather than back links, I personally feel that backlinks are no longer the main major ranking factor, Especially with mobile updates coming April, It would make more sense for google to use data from those devices and also their analytics, desktop etc to pass rank as this is a REAL indicator of a good site.. it may already be happening right now but no real research on the subject yet, it is the most logical solution and we also be an answer to all the spam, and cheats looking for quick rankings out there.

 

[Phil Casino Tips]

Is there a way to prevent these things from happening?
Just wondering if you can do something to minimize the risk.