Negative SEO

Negative SEO is the practice of using black-hat techniques to harm a competitor’s search rankings. It is a real phenomenon, but it is much less common than people think—and Google has gotten better at ignoring it.

Common negative SEO tactics

• Spammy backlinks — Pointing thousands of low-quality or pornographic links at a competitor
• Content scraping — Copying and republishing a site’s content elsewhere
• Hacking — Gaining access to a site and modifying it (302 redirects, hidden text, malware)
• Fake reviews — Submitting negative reviews to damage a business’s reputation
• Hotlinking — Embedding a competitor’s images on spammy sites to drain their bandwidth
• CTR manipulation — Using bots to click a competitor’s listing in a way that hurts engagement signals

How to defend your site

1. Set up backlink alerts. Use Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Search Console to monitor new links.
2. Use the disavow tool sparingly. Only for links you genuinely cannot get removed.
3. Enable 2FA and security headers. Most “hacks” are preventable with basic hygiene.
4. Monitor Search Console. Manual actions and security issues show up there first.
5. Set up brand mention monitoring. Catch fake reviews and impersonation early.

What doesn’t work as a negative SEO attack

• Negative SEO attacks based on user signals (CTR, bounce rate) are usually ineffective
• “De-indexing” attacks via robots.txt are not a real threat
• Keyword cannibalization is usually self-inflicted, not an attack

What to do if you’re attacked

1. Document everything (screenshots, link lists, dates)
2. Try to get the bad links removed (contact webmasters)
3. Use Google’s Disavow Tool for links you cannot remove
4. File a reconsideration request if you receive a manual action
5. If hacked, follow Google’s hacked site recovery guide

Related concepts

• Backlink
• Link Building
• White Hat SEO
• Technical SEO