Using Negative SEO against a spammer?

36 replies
  • SEO
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Hi all,

In my niche, a spammer has created 12 identical sites with no content but just spun articles and they have used over 100 expired domains to rank ahead of everyone else.

For most search terms, they get atleast 4-5 of their spammy sites ahead of everyone else.

They have no other backinks but pure achnor spam from expired domains. All of their 12 sites are less than a year old and still outranking very old and established sites.

They have been reported to Google many times but Google doesn't care much about spam reports.

Is it fair that negative SEO should be directed at a spammer to expose them?
#negative #seo #spammer
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    So they are beating you and rather than competing you would rather try negative SEO (which probably won't work)?

    Hmm......Just one question. Who would be the real spammer if you did?

    That argument is like saying you will cheat on your partner to expose their cheating.

    Just makes you both cheaters

    Plus no offense but every time I hear a marketer claiming someone beating them has a crappy site they themselves had a crappy site.
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    • Profile picture of the author gimpulsive
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      So they are beating you and rather than competing you would rather try negative SEO (which probably won't work)?

      Hmm......Just one question. Who would be the real spammer if you did?

      That argument is like saying you will cheat on your partner to expose their cheating.

      Just makes you both cheaters

      Plus no offense but every time I hear a marketer claiming someone beating them has a crappy site they themselves had a crappy site.
      If they were beating us on content, it was a different thing.

      They are manipulating the system, why not give them a taste of their own medicine?
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by gimpulsive View Post

        If they were beating us on content, it was a different thing.

        They are manipulating the system, why not give them a taste of their own medicine?

        I will give you a mini network (4 domains with healthy Pr links) if your site deserves to be in the top 3 in the serp. If you think I would be biased I'll make Mike Friedman a judge as well.

        the one rule is it must not be a crappy niche where everyone is spamming to death (like payday loans or some review crap niche). In that case sure google ignores the whole crappy serp and could care less if you nuke each other to death.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by gimpulsive View Post

        If they were beating us on content, it was a different thing.

        They are manipulating the system, why not give them a taste of their own medicine?
        Manipulating the system?

        What system?

        If you mean Google guidelines, please... This is SEO, not paint by numbers.
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        • Profile picture of the author CampbellMcArthur
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Manipulating the system?

          What system?

          If you mean Google guidelines, please... This is SEO, not paint by numbers.
          BINGO! Yukon knows whats up! The Game is rigged kids and Google is laughing at all of us!
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      • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
        Originally Posted by gimpulsive View Post

        If they were beating us on content, it was a different thing.

        They are manipulating the system, why not give them a taste of their own medicine?
        Right, until you piss them off and they directly attack you with your own content...

        This is not a fight you win.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Eddie
    Focus your time and effort on doing good SEO for your own site, if it's worthwhile to you.

    Several months ago I had some clown try a negative SEO attack on one of my affiliate sites.

    Over the course of a month they blasted thousands of crappy exact match links at my site.

    Maybe they felt that their site deserved to be ranking above mine, I don't know.

    My site was built using a decent expired domain, and had links pointing to it from many other sites in my private network.

    The negative SEO did nothing at all. I ranked just the same.

    I noticed that it had happened a few months later, and disavowed the links.

    I'd like to give the person who tried it a good slapping though.
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    • Profile picture of the author gimpulsive
      Originally Posted by EdwardJ View Post


      I noticed that it had happened a few months later, and disavowed the links.
      You atleast had a WMT account. I would love these guys to use Disavowed tool but they wont as they are running 12 exact replica sites.

      Trust me, they are doing nothing right and running a complete fraud.

      The day Google went after them, they won't return to pick the leftovers.

      Their model is to do as much damage as possible before getting caught. They are spinning 2-3 new domains with same content each month and adding more and more heavy anchor spam on 1 page expired domain templates.
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    • Profile picture of the author TLondon
      Originally Posted by EdwardJ View Post

      Focus your time and effort on doing good SEO for your own site, if it's worthwhile to you.

      Several months ago I had some clown try a negative SEO attack on one of my affiliate sites.
      And here's where yet another massive loophole is in Google's system. It's good that you haven't been affected, but as we see more dishonest people join the online marketing community, this will be more common.

      How would someone with not such a strong domain avoid that? If there are 100s of 1000s of links spammed at you, how should one disavow them all? What if it's an eCom site, and once the ranking drops or gets the deindexed altogether, that's daily sales dropping, a lot of them.

      Is there a way to protect yourself from such a thing without manipulating the system, and is there a way to notify Google to get immediate action against this practice?
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      • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
        Originally Posted by TLondon View Post

        And here's where yet another massive loophole is in Google's system. It's good that you haven't been affected, but as we see more dishonest people join the online marketing community, this will be more common.

        How would someone with not such a strong domain avoid that? If there are 100s of 1000s of links spammed at you, how should one disavow them all? What if it's an eCom site, and once the ranking drops or gets the deindexed altogether, that's daily sales dropping, a lot of them.

        Is there a way to protect yourself from such a thing without manipulating the system, and is there a way to notify Google to get immediate action against this practice?
        NSEO is a myth. It does not work.

        I've been running a 10 month long case study attacking a number of different sites, low competition, medium and high competition, attacking them with spam, sape links, reporting them to Google, everything you can think of and the sites do not lose rank.

        These are not innocent victims though. They are all scammers.

        After this case study, I will never worry about NSEO again. It does not work. It is one of the least effective ways I know of to take down a scammer or competitor. So I would not worry about it until it happens, and even then, still not worry about it.
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        • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
          ...have you bothered to look at things beyond links?

          Obviously you have, right?
          Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

          NSEO is a myth. It does not work.

          I've been running a 10 month long case study attacking a number of different sites, low competition, medium and high competition, attacking them with spam, sape links, reporting them to Google, everything you can think of and the sites do not lose rank.

          These are not innocent victims though. They are all scammers.

          After this case study, I will never worry about NSEO again. It does not work. It is one of the least effective ways I know of to take down a scammer or competitor. So I would not worry about it until it happens, and even then, still not worry about it.
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          • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
            Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

            ...have you bothered to look at things beyond links?

            Obviously you have, right?
            I think you have said quite enough on the subject. It put's the lotion on it's skin, or else it gets the hose again.....

            Before you can tank a page, you have to know how to rank a page. Only in reverse...LOLZ...
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            • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
              Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

              I think you have said quite enough on the subject. It put's the lotion on it's skin, or else it gets the hose again.....

              Before you can tank a page, you have to know how to rank a page. Only in reverse...LOLZ...
              LOL, just saw this... too funny.

              Sorry....
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              • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
                Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

                LOL, just saw this... too funny.

                Sorry....
                You've been hitting my site for 3 months straight, and I don't even know what "Cialis" is?
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        • Profile picture of the author SEO Eddie
          Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

          NSEO is a myth. It does not work.

          I've been running a 10 month long case study attacking a number of different sites, low competition, medium and high competition, attacking them with spam, sape links, reporting them to Google, everything you can think of and the sites do not lose rank.

          These are not innocent victims though. They are all scammers.

          After this case study, I will never worry about NSEO again. It does not work. It is one of the least effective ways I know of to take down a scammer or competitor. So I would not worry about it until it happens, and even then, still not worry about it.

          There are enough people doing negative SEO on their own sites, and busting out of the SERPs, to suggest that it can work.
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          • Profile picture of the author TLondon
            Originally Posted by EdwardJ View Post

            There are enough people doing negative SEO on their own sites, and busting out of the SERPs, to suggest that it can work.
            This.

            If negative SEO wouldn't work, then spammers would be dominating Google.
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            • Profile picture of the author Dellco
              You all forget Google has evolved. It's likely their intelligence is a lot more advanced than we think. That is likely why Negative SEO doesn't work. Negative SEO has always existed for years, and I'm sure the intelligence to detect this has been worked on for years now.

              I do not know to what extent Google monitors us, our searches, or the use of the Google Keyword tool, or this forum, but I would not be surprised if they did.

              I am constantly surprised how certain companies get to know about the people I have corresponded with only through email, and that was years ago.....and no, it's not on my Facebook or anywhere, only through Gmail.

              Something to think about....
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        • Profile picture of the author DizenSounds
          That's because you are doing it wrong. Negative SEO is easy, most people don't have a clue how to do it. Most think you throw some porn keywords at the domain and you fall out of rankings.

          Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

          NSEO is a myth. It does not work.

          I've been running a 10 month long case study attacking a number of different sites, low competition, medium and high competition, attacking them with spam, sape links, reporting them to Google, everything you can think of and the sites do not lose rank.

          These are not innocent victims though. They are all scammers.

          After this case study, I will never worry about NSEO again. It does not work. It is one of the least effective ways I know of to take down a scammer or competitor. So I would not worry about it until it happens, and even then, still not worry about it.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    It sounds to me like your mind is already made up and you are just looking for someone's blessing to go ahead with it.

    You'll have some people that say go for it and others that say do not do it.

    If you are expecting a bunch of people to jump up and down shouting, "Go get'em!" I don't think you are going to find that.
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  • Profile picture of the author convictie
    You have my blessing if that helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author raiko
      Wait...what!? I thought quality content always won out over spam? Oh...maybe that's just over the long term. Hopefully you can wait it out until Google gets their algorithm correct. : )
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  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    Worry less about Google and more about building a brand for yourself...

    Do you think Yelp worries about every junk review site?

    Do you think Zappos worries about every 'website-that-sells-shoes.com'?

    They could care less. Take a page from their playbook.
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  • Go for it. If you can't beat them join them.

    Seriously though, just make your site better. Im sure if I took a look at it i could pick some glaring holes in it.
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  • Profile picture of the author elusian
    I don't believe in putting negativity out there. This guy found techniques that beat your techniques. Learn from him.

    I am not suggesting putting up spammy sites but look at the engineering behind what he has done and make it work for you. You can learn something from every experience both good and bad.
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  • Profile picture of the author EmilyJose
    This will not work long term i think!
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  • Profile picture of the author jkgultimate
    They have a Private Blog Network somewhere, good for them.

    I have to build one myself, it seems like they work really well lol.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEOArbiterJoanne
    Rather than trying to sabotage their sites which is not really going to achieve anything for you, why don't you instead try and look deeper at their sites and see what they're doing?

    If they're easily outranking you with rubbish sites then maybe there are a few things you can learn from them to improve your own rankings?
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    • Profile picture of the author KayOS
      They are obviously gaming Google, which everyone knows by now is not a sustainable method of online success. If I was you, I would focus on providing your users with a quality experience when they land on your site because that's what Google's algorithm is focusing more on these days. And if their site is as crappy as you say then it's highly unlikely that they will enjoy their scheme for much longer.
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  • Profile picture of the author cyberwar
    Negative SEO does work, I think somebody did it to one of my sites before.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEOWizard417
    Negative seo is real, not sure what type of testing you did. Google is actually having issues differentiating between crap seo and negative seo. In any case, to the OP, your competitor has no problem ranking crappy content, so negative seo is not really a viable option as they can just repeat their process over again.

    Focus on building more authority for your own site and getting some better links. Don't drink that pool aid Google is selling about content being king. Good content with no back links and exposure will get you nowhere in a tougher niche.
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  • Profile picture of the author Masondavis
    Negative SEO does work, I think somebody did it to one of my sites before.
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  • Profile picture of the author sreejanniyogi
    If those sites are really spammy then i dont think that they will last on page 1 for more than 2 days. But if they are ranking continuously then i am afraid that they must be doing something correct.
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  • Profile picture of the author LuckyIMer
    Better to focus your efforts and time on your website rather than doing negative SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author Talent
    Originally Posted by gimpulsive View Post

    Hi all,

    In my niche, a spammer has created 12 identical sites with no content but just spun articles and they have used over 100 expired domains to rank ahead of everyone else.

    For most search terms, they get atleast 4-5 of their spammy sites ahead of everyone else.

    They have no other backinks but pure achnor spam from expired domains. All of their 12 sites are less than a year old and still outranking very old and established sites.

    They have been reported to Google many times but Google doesn't care much about spam reports.

    Is it fair that negative SEO should be directed at a spammer to expose them?

    You need to just take your ball and go home... It seems that you are being dominated and you are too lazy to do what is actually necessary to beat them.
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