phracktl
Regular Member
- Sep 2, 2012
- 218
- 154
According to this article in SE Watch (link below text)
We all know it does. Really, if it became widespread it could really impact their business. Maybe theres a deeper reason for the animal updates?
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For years, Google stood by the stance that there was little competitors could do to a website to negatively affect its search engine rankings. As natural links became more valuable and paid links were devalued or penalized, Google changed their stance slightly on the issue, but still maintained it wasn't a widespread issue, with Google's Matt Cutts admitting negative SEO isn't impossible, but it is difficult.
Then came the link disavow tool, which allows webmasters to disallow paid or low quality links and clean up their backlink profile, regardless of whether they or a competitor was responsible for pointing those backlinks at a website.
Now Google has changed their stance once again, simply saying that Google works hard to prevent competitors from utilizing negative SEO.
The change was noticed on the ?Can Competitors harm ranking?? help page at Google Webmaster Tools.
When the page first went online, it simply stated ?There?s nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.? Last year, when negative SEO became a lot more prevalent, the wording was changed to ?There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.?
This week, webmasters noticed that the wording was changed once more, to ?Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.?
This is a clear admission that yes, negative SEO does exist and it can result in third parties being able to remove competing sites from the Google search index, or at least negatively impact their search rankings.
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2272092/Google-Confirms-Negative-SEO-Exists
We all know it does. Really, if it became widespread it could really impact their business. Maybe theres a deeper reason for the animal updates?
----
For years, Google stood by the stance that there was little competitors could do to a website to negatively affect its search engine rankings. As natural links became more valuable and paid links were devalued or penalized, Google changed their stance slightly on the issue, but still maintained it wasn't a widespread issue, with Google's Matt Cutts admitting negative SEO isn't impossible, but it is difficult.
Then came the link disavow tool, which allows webmasters to disallow paid or low quality links and clean up their backlink profile, regardless of whether they or a competitor was responsible for pointing those backlinks at a website.
Now Google has changed their stance once again, simply saying that Google works hard to prevent competitors from utilizing negative SEO.
The change was noticed on the ?Can Competitors harm ranking?? help page at Google Webmaster Tools.
When the page first went online, it simply stated ?There?s nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.? Last year, when negative SEO became a lot more prevalent, the wording was changed to ?There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.?
This week, webmasters noticed that the wording was changed once more, to ?Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.?
This is a clear admission that yes, negative SEO does exist and it can result in third parties being able to remove competing sites from the Google search index, or at least negatively impact their search rankings.
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2272092/Google-Confirms-Negative-SEO-Exists
