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Negative SEO in Action .... We are Under Attack

by lucasbowen
15 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

We could really use some help here. We are contemplating if we should now resort to Disawov but before this, can anyone share some advise please?

I'm sure we've all read of negative SEO and the possibility therein. We see it now or at least that's how we read it.

The situation.

1. Someone has targeted about 10 of our subdomains.
2. That someone is pushing articles of a high spam nature to dubious sites, including a link to our subdomains.
3. On a daily basis about 5-10 links are built. So far, as per pings we get, a total of 78 posts with links pushed since April 6th.
4. We believe the purpose is for the spammer to get a pingback/trackback from us, which obviously we do not give
5. But the main concern is that to the SE's - and Google in particular - it will appear as if we are into low quality link building and this will surely affect our SERPs position negatively. We fear we might even face a Panda penalty.
6. We can't contact any of the site owners - no contact details.

Any good ideas on how to deal with this?

One example here. Link is in first paragraph.

http://oaktonchurch.com/pongos-emplo...uctor-carries/

Appreciate ANY help

Cheers,

Lucas
#action #attack #negative #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
    Hey Lucas,

    Looks like negative SEO to me too.

    Unfortunately, there's not that much you can do to fight negative SEO.

    That being said, I wouldn't disavow quite yet.

    It looks like most (if not all) of the links pointing to this page: How to Prep for a 2nd Interview | are from your attacker.

    Considering you don't have any natural links to that page, I'd 404 the page and move the content to a new URL. Obviously, don't 301 that page to your new URL.

    As long as you don't have any links that you earned pointing to those pages you're not losing any quality links by moving the pages new URLs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    If you don't have any penalty you don't have to take any action.

    If you find your SERPS dropping off then yes, disavow the bad link pages.

    For now, just keep an eye on it, maybe even get a script created which will keep track of and catalogue them for you so that you don't have any real work to do to disavow them should you need to.
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    nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    A negative seo attack with 5-10 links a day, sounds a bit odd to me, if your site has a tiny bit of authority this is totally nothing to worry about.

    That links looks more like a forgotten link building campaign from an SEO provider that you once hired as it are blog posts with relevant anchor txt.

    Not a single sane person would use such links for neg seo attacks.
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      A negative seo attack with 5-10 links a day, sounds a bit odd to me, if your site has a tiny bit of authority this is totally nothing to worry about.

      That links looks more like a forgotten link building campaign from an SEO provider that you once hired as it are blog posts with relevant anchor txt.

      Not a single sane person would use such links for neg seo attacks.
      LOL...this 'attack' is so low-key it doesn't seem the attacker is even mad
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    That sounds more like you hired a bad backlinker than any kind of an attack. Negative SEO attacks usually involve creating thousands of low quality links a day, not a handful.

    If it is a negative SEO attack, it is the slap fight version.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      That sounds more like you hired a bad backlinker than any kind of an attack. Negative SEO attacks usually involve creating thousands of low quality links a day, not a handful.

      If it is a negative SEO attack, it is the slap fight version.
      Maybe the attacker is using ALN
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Like others have said, when I think of -SEO I think of creating thousands of spammy links everyday... not "5-10".

    But it makes me curious, are there any official write-ups on how to deal with -SEO? Aside from merely using the disavow tool?

    And if not, does using the disavow tool actually work? Like if someone slams your site with 500,000 shitty backlinks and you use the tool... are you back to normal or no?

    -Red
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    lol your attack is like a poodle at best, an attack would be rottweiler scale of 10k sblinks a day. do NOT use disavow, that will probably hurt you more fwiw.
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  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    Disavow is useless. It was created to give webmasters a sense
    of calm and accomplishment. Nothing else. It's like those people
    you see pushing the walk button at signals...they swear the more
    they push, the faster the light will change. (yes, I know that on
    some, unbusy side streets, the light will only change when pushed. Once.)

    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      Disavow is useless. It was created to give webmasters a sense
      of calm and accomplishment. Nothing else. It's like those people
      you see pushing the walk button at signals...they swear the more
      they push, the faster the light will change. (yes, I know that on
      some, unbusy side streets, the light will only change when pushed. Once.)

      Paul
      On how many sites did you test it to come to this conclusion? Did you file for reinclusion after that?
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  • Profile picture of the author palms
    It looks to me like it's authors who did guest posts on your site building links to their guest posts to boost their link juice.
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  • Profile picture of the author lucasbowen
    Hey - just going full circle on this. See following. Bottom line - Disavow - don't unless it's really bad! See comments by JohnMu (Google)

    https://productforums.google.com/for...rs/q3xvbZerWV0
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  • Profile picture of the author surajramnani
    Tricky Situation..Did you try speaking to someone at google forums?
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