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negative seo

seo glossary from digital now gmbh

What is negative SEO?

Negative SEO is search engine optimization that leads to deterioration instead of improvement. Improvement measures introduced for a better ranking result in the website losing positions. In most cases, a poorer ranking comes from a devaluation of the website by Google, as manipulation measures have been taken. Such practices are not permitted and lead to a penalty.

What significance does negative search engine optimization have for SEO?

Search engine optimizers and webmasters should preferably refrain from using unauthorized methods to climb up the rankings. If the search engines recognize these practices, they will be downgraded or completely excluded from the search index.

Good SEOs manage to achieve a good search engine ranking even without spamming, backlinks from link farms and the like.

Years ago, crawlers could still be tricked. However, robots have now also become more intelligent and recognize methods such as spamming and inferior backlinks. The topic of backlinks must be viewed particularly critically in the area of negative SEO. It is possible to receive a negative rating even without taking your own measures. Competitors have the opportunity to influence this. If the competition is fierce and a keyword is highly contested, this can certainly happen. For this reason, it is important to keep an eye on the website's backlink structure and take possible countermeasures to avoid being penalized by Google.