Q: If we suspect we have been affected by negative SEO reporting can we find out?
Answer:
What is negative SEO? Negative SEO is when a competitor rats you out to Google. How do they do this? First, you need to be doing something that is in violation of the Google terms of service. Usually this will be either an on page violation such as a keyword stuffed doorway page or pages, or an off page violation such as participation in a link scheme.
Almost everyone who engages in search engine optimization is in violation of something! Google has so thoroughly written the rules of the game that almost anything can be construed as a violation. So, now let’s assume you are in violation.
A competitor sees you showing up across searches that matter to them, and they have a savvy search engine optimization firm, so they log into webmaster tools and they issue a complaint.
One or two complaints is not generally sufficient to cause a manual penalty. However if they know what they are doing, and or they have contacts inside of Google, with enough blustering, they can get Google’s attention. Fortunately Google will alert you via webmaster tools that you have been subject to a manual penalty, and they will generally do a pretty nice job of telling you what you need to do to fix it.
The big take away here is to make sure you are subscribed to webmaster tools, and make sure you are receiving alerts from webmaster tools, and or checking it regularly!
Got a question? Click this link to email Jason or call 888-993-1122. Dr. Jason McDonald is founder and Senior SEO / Social Media Director of the JM Internet Group. He teaches the SEO training classes for the group, and therefore provides most of the SEO tips for this blog. His goal with this blog is to provide an easy 'one-stop shop' for the busy marketer looking for tips, tricks, and secrets on how to get to the top of Google and Bing for free using proven SEO tactics. When not dreaming up SEO tips, Dr. McDonald lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, two dogs, a cat, four iguanas and twelve children (just kidding). Really you read down to the bio on this guy? Enjoy the blog.
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