NEGATIVE SEO May Be Becoming a Reality?

JSProjects

12 years ago

There's already Fiverr gigs offering negative SEO, which is sad. And even sadder, I bet there will be a huge market.

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yukon Banned 12 years ago

Originally Posted by JSProjects

There's already Fiverr gigs offering negative SEO, which is sad. And even sadder, I bet there will be a huge market.

If I was Google I would deindex fiverr (or anyone else) until they stop letting people advertise junk services.
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- JSProjects 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by yukon
  
  If I was Google I would deindex fiverr (or anyone else) until they stop letting people advertise junk services.
  
  Not a bad idea.
  
  Fiverr is completely out of control and I'm surprised that nothing has really been done about it. There's so many awful gigs there.
  
  But then again, what can you expect for five bucks? Sure, there's a FEW decent SEO related gigs. But most are just junk. And now people are starting to promote negative SEO gigs? Way to go.
  
  Fortunately there's more to Fiverr than SEO gigs. But they really need to police that aspect a little bit better.
  
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jsherloc

12 years ago

lol de-indexing fiverr will just keep the problem festering below ground even longer. the problem is much larger than fiverr gigs popping up, i honestly think many are just to get Google's attention, but I'm sure many have negative SERP effects as well...

IMO simulating rapid volume of link loss by building TONS of links on properties that you control, and then removing them in addition to the crappy inbound links can really hurt a lot of websites out there. If they go the 2 second extra step of reporting your site as well as some other easy things to do that is probably NOT good news for a lot of folks.

These fiverr gigs are just the crap thats rising to the surface, the stuff going on behind the scenes seems a whole lot darker than simple spam blasts, etc...

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yukon

Banned 12 years ago

Originally Posted by jsherloc

lol de-indexing fiverr will just keep the problem festering below ground even longer. the problem is much larger than fiverr gigs popping up, i honestly think many are just to get Google's attention, but I'm sure many have negative SERP effects as well...

IMO simulating rapid volume of link loss by building TONS of links on properties that you control, and then removing them in addition to the crappy inbound links can really hurt a lot of websites out there. If they go the 2 second extra step of reporting your site as well as some other easy things to do that is probably NOT good news for a lot of folks.

These fiverr gigs are just the crap thats rising to the surface, the stuff going on behind the scenes seems a whole lot darker than simple spam blasts, etc...

I guarantee that If fiverr was deindex for selling services to try and do harm to other peoples business, that news would travel faster than any negative SEO news would ever spread on the net.

Make an example & I bet a lot of other sites would clean house.

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Kurt

12 years ago

Originally Posted by consultant1027

I've read some threads around the Internet including some recent ones in reputable forums that seem to confirming what I thought would be an impossibility for Google to implement. NEGATIVE link juice.

My only guess is that they think that major sites with gazillions of backlinks will cannot be effected by any single SEO's efforts to move them down by blasting links.

There are some theories that this may be more of a psychological assault on grey-hat SEOs which includes most SEOs or anyone trying to manipulate SERPs using any strategies.

If this is true, a very large market may start to develop for Negative SEO services if it hasn't already. I know the tools being used SEONuke, XRumer, etc. etc., but I'm too busy on higher level things to have time to run experiments myself. If this IS possible, Google will have to adjust the algo if enough negative SEO happens as it WILL eventually lower the quality of their results. (This is why I thought they could never go down this road in the first place.) It seems to me the ego's at Google are pissed enough about SEO though that they are willing to take this risk, if just to see everyone freak out for a while.

If there are any SEOs out there that are interested in running some test, I've got some target sites to try. I'm willing to do a pay for performance arrangement if necessary (if you lower a site, I'll pay you ) PM me if interested.

You're correct. They "can't" do this and it makes no sense at all. I can't figure out why they are letting it happen and I don't think it's accidental.

If Google can penalize for "bad" links, they can also simply ignore those same links. This would affect the "bad" sites without hurting the innocent sites.

But why has Google chosen to allow innocent sites to be hurt when they clearly don't have to?

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Mike Anthony

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Kurt

If Google can penalize for "bad" links, they can also simply ignore those same links. This would affect the "bad" sites without hurting the innocent sites.

But why has Google chosen to allow innocent sites to be hurt when they clearly don't have to?

The answer to that I think might be in deterrence and not 100% being able to discount everything. if some links will get through and work then marketers will still try and with no downside then theres no punishment factor. I don't think they will go to just discounting. They seem to me to be getting ready to do something with content and maybe authorty links that muzzles the effect for sites with certain qualities. As long as there are protective factors for enough of the good sites then their mission is accomplished .

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jsherloc

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

The answer to that I think might be in deterrence and not 100% being able to discount everything. if some links will get through and work then marketers will still try and with no downside then theres no punishment factor. I don't think they will go to just discounting. They seem to me to be getting ready to do something with content and maybe authorty links that muzzles the effect for sites with certain qualities. As long as there are protective factors for enough of the good sites then their mission is accomplished .

What you just described is what most experienced IMers are currently already doing though, BECAUSE of the potential in getting a penalty, the unreliability of the SERPs due to external site factors ahem exponential LINKS/LINK LOSS power etc... so I don't see how it is a deterrence in this scenario really.

Between all the updates over the years Panda etc, most people in this business are already throwing every which kind of link at the wall to see what sticks for the short and longterm, "polluting" the web with every type of website/"link" juice they can, all in their same niches to try and get a "glimpse" of what current patterns the Google link-reliant algo craves, etc...so IMO their vagueness and blatant misdirection regarding the real world effects of LINKS regarding this stuff is just further extending this major problem, if not making it exponentially worse. At this point, I don't see how they HAVEN'T "indirectly" created more spam in the last year alone, with all of their algo swings, updates, penalties, etc?

When people deal with an unknown, they diversify to the point of redundancy. see Panda et all...welp same applies for offpage factors etc...

When you give people clarification and ACTIONABLE feedback, things go a lot more smoothly and there's less JUNK, no? Clarification should lead to better quality results and less spam IMO, as vagueness and complete misdirection of real world results perpetuates this insanity to the point of silliness.

Give people a real path to follow with potential incentives (ie the best traffic in the planet), and they'll likely stay on that path. Give people vagueness, and they'll likely continue exploring every direction of the jungle they can running amok through the wilderness swinging their axes around. I think they just can't scale the necessary stuff they need to, to combat these techniques without affecting other things, so it's all a big mess I'm sure...

EDIT: TLDR: GOOGLE CREATED THE LINK SPAM PROBLEM BECAUSE THEIR ALGORITHM HEAVILY RELIES ON VARIOUS FORMS OF LINK SPAM.

DOUBLE EDIT: Within minutes of this post, another thread was posted in this subforum that PERFECTLY illustrates my point regarding Google "vagueness" and how it perpetuates "exploration/potential link spam" in the form of throwing whatever you can out there in small chunks to see if you get any ranking results/traffic:

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ml#post6095600

IMO this subforum is usually filled with eager enthusiastic innocent posts like that, and why?...The Google algo's heavy reliance of the link flavor of the month etc...

The phrase "they made their bed..." comes to mind lol

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retsek

12 years ago

C'mon, yukon you should know that sites like fiverr don't depend on search traffic. De-indexing them would achieve exactly zero.

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jsherloc 12 years ago

Originally Posted by retsek

C'mon, yukon you should know that sites like fiverr don't depend on search traffic. De-indexing them would achieve exactly zero.

That, and at least IMO, more than 90% of fiverr gigs can actually hurt websites in the long-run even though they specify they exist to HELP. What most people believe is helping them is probably hurting their assets long-term.

Just another wonderful side-effect of the most aggressively link-reliant algorithm in history and PR misdirection vs real world results.
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