Picking up from where we left off in Negative SEO: What It Is & How to Avoid It (Pt. 1), below, we will continue our discussion regarding negative search engine optimization tactics. While the first part of this blog series focused on defining what negative SEO is, here, we will point out what can be done to protect a website from negative SEO.
Keep in mind that, although this discussion is general, you can some more specific answers regarding your website and your best options for protecting it against negative SEO by calling the industry professionals at Epic Web Results today.
What You Can Do to Avoid Negative SEO
Here are some things that can help you protect your website from negative SEO:
- Set up a special Google email alert – Effectively, this alert from the Google Webmaster will send you an email any time your website is being targeted by malware, your site receives a manual penalty from Google, your server is experiencing connectivity problems and/or your site’s pages are not indexing. When you receive an email alerting you to any of these serious issues, you should be on alert that your site may have been the target of negative SEO.
- Regularly monitor your site’s backlinks – Given that negative SEO can involve harpooning a site with excessive, poor backlinks, making sure to regularly check the backlinks associated with your site will be important to determining when any negative SEO may be hurting your site.
While checking backlinks can be a manual (and time-consuming) process, there are various services that may monitor these links for you automatically, alerting you only when potential problems arise.
- Make sure your site is secure – Essentially, this is a security issue that involves taking the appropriate measures to prevent hackers and/or malware from being able to attack and damage your website. More specifically, having sufficient security for your website can involve the use of certain security plugins, the use of a strong password (with letters, numbers and special characters) and the regular backup of your site’s files and databases.
As with modern SEO practices, security for a website is an ongoing effort, so it’s best to work with a professional to develop the best security strategies and plan for your website – both now and for the future.
- Monitor duplicate content – Negative SEO can involve duplicating your site’s original content in various places on your site (so it looks like you are publishing duplicate content across your site) or publishing your original content in various other locations across the web before the content has been indexed for your site (so again, Google sees your site as duplicating content, rather than publishing original content).
Various services can help you run scans across your site to show you if the same content is being republished throughout your website or if third parties may be publishing your content without your knowledge or consent. Staying on top of this aspect is another critical thing to do in order to avoid having your site get penalized by Google for allegedly duplicating content.
For some final things you can do to avoid being the target of negative SEO, be sure to check out the upcoming conclusion to this blog series.
Effective Internet Marketing Solutions at Epic Web Results
At Epic Web Results, our skilled industry professionals are up to date with the latest advances in Internet marketing and SEO best practices, and we are highly adept at designing and maintaining optimized websites that will soar to the top of search engines.
To learn more about our customized, innovative Internet marketing solutions, contact the professionals at Epic Web Results by calling (800) 501-9724 or by emailing us using the contact form on this page.
