If you have been interested in search engine optimisation (SEO) then you have probably come across the term “negative SEO”. But what does it really mean? In this article, we sort out all the question marks related to this topic.
What is negative SEO?
There are probably as many answers to this question as there are SEO experts. Everyone has their own interpretations of what negative search engine optimisation actually means, but most people can usually agree that it is, in one way or another, about trying to degrade someone else’s positions in search engines like Google.
This is how it works in practice
Okay, so negative SEO is about trying to weaken someone else’s presence in search engines. But how does it really work in practice?
There are a variety of ways that one can try to ruin someone else in the search engines. The most common, however, is that you try to slow down or shut down a site via congestion attacks, or that you point a large number of “junk links” to a website.
By spam links I mean links that come from low-quality and spammy websites.
As mentioned in the introduction, there are a variety of approaches to degrading someone’s position in search engines. Or at least try. The above examples are probably the most common that people associate with negative search engine optimisation.
How common is negative SEO?
So, how common is it then for websites to be exposed to such attacks?
Personally, I would say that the chance of experiencing negative SEO attacks is very small. As far as I know, not many people in Sweden engage in this type of activity. And even if you were to be attacked, either through congestion or bad links, it is not very likely that it would affect your positions significantly.
Today, Google’s algorithms have become so smart and advanced that they can ignore, for example, bad links.
To sum it all up, the chance of encountering negative SEO attacks is small. Should it be unlikely that someone decides to send thousands of spam links to your site, there is little chance that it will have any effect on your positions in the search engines.