Conclusive answer: Can you hurt, drop ranking, or deindex...?

[BoiseMarketer]

If you take a tool like GSA or SEnuke, can you create massive spammy links and hurt a target site's rankings? Or even get a site deindexed?

Practical application would be to use this to drop a competitor's rank to make way for your site.

Edit: I should have provided more information. It's not my intentions to perform Negative SEO, but rather to know if this is a valid concern if an aggressive competitor gets ambitious.

If negative SEO is a real tactic, how would you monitor or protect yourself against this?

There was a video course of Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon from a few years back. And Andy Jenkins makes a snide remark about making a bunch of cloaked links to get his competitors site banned. Since watching this video I've always wonder (1) if this is a real dark hat strategy or (2) if someone with malicious intent can destroy your site and rankings.

 

[Kralj187]

What you are asking for is negative seo, and in most cases it never works the way you want. Very often you increase your competitors rankings.

Also neg. seo is not something the bhw community supports...

 

[uniqbuy]

Using blackhat or greyhat techniques to rank your site is one thing but trying to ruin a competitor in this way I would think is a low thing to do. It is a like those sellers on eBay that dob in your items so that they can clear the playing field for themself - I have serious hate towards them.

I know that if you are not on the 1st page for at least some key terms that convert you might as well not have a website but I am sure we have all been there. I am there now myself after Penguin 3.

 

[Aty]

I've heard rumors like you could actually make your competitor's site stronger by doing that. Either way, I wouldn't try it.

 

[djw1606]

Why would you want to try and destroy someone's site?

If you had an offline business, would you go out and fire-bomb your competitor's premises?

Put your energy into making your sites better, not harming your competitors sites.

 

[BoiseMarketer]

If negative SEO is a real tactic, how would you monitor or protect yourself against this?

There was a video course of Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon from a few years back. And Andy Jenkins makes a snide remark about making a bunch of cloaked links to get his competitors site banned. Since watching this video I've always wonder (1) if this is a real dark hat strategy or (2) if someone with malicious intent can destroy your site and rankings.

 

[cloakndagger2]

Google is getting smarter with neg seo, researching some niches I have seen some neg seo'd sites ranking #1 (as of today). I'd say google is working on it not being as effective as it once was. I'd get no satisfaction from that so I'm happy to see G is actively trying to counter neg seo.

 

[PandaDomo]

I've heard rumors like you could actually make your competitor's site stronger by doing that. Either way, I wouldn't try it.

On the contrary, I think it highly depends on your negative SEO strategy as well as how aged/authoritative your competitor's site is. From what I hear, most of the time the competitor's site got stronger was because their site was good enough to be able to absorb all these extra links.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend trying negative SEO either.

Google is getting smarter with neg seo, researching some niches I have seen some neg seo'd sites ranking #1 (as of today). I'd say google is working on it not being as effective as it once was. I'd get no satisfaction from that so I'm happy to see G is actively trying to counter neg seo.

I don't think this is true in regards with Google trying to counter negative SEO by giving the hit site higher rankings. Negative SEO is essentially building really shitty and spammy backlinks, so if this was the case, what differentiates negative SEO and really awful SEO in this scenario? Wouldn't really spammy sites be able to rank higher because in Google's eyes, this site was hit by "negative" SEO? It wouldn't make sense, this would just throw quality out the window as a requirement.

 

[txhepoker]

Karma Bro... Karma.

 

[sudorank]

Yes, Negative SEO is completely real - like any other form of SEO though it gets technical and if you don't 100% understand what you're doing, you'll just as likely improve your clients ranking rather than destroy it.

There are two types that work well at the moment, one involves faking social metrics and the other relies on certain types of link that Google Penguin punishes quite harshly. Thankfully, very few people properly understand how to actually perform Negative SEO, throwing everything spam related at targets rather than being a bit more focused and concentrating on exactly what Google punishes at any one moment.

That being said, Negative SEO is a horrible thing to do to a competitor. Quite a lot of mom and pops rely (For better or Worse) on their Google rankings to survive so you can effectively close a local shop within weeks of an attack.

Karma Bro... Karma.

Exactly, pay it forward - never backward!

 

[Gyuman82]

With GSA and Senuke you can cause a site to get penalized by an update like Penguin (excessive spam), but you cannot get it de-indexed (ie removed from Google all together) with these tools alone.


Oh and LOL at

Practical application would be to use this to drop a competitor's rank to make way for your site.

Edit: I should have provided more information. It's not my intentions to perform Negative SEO, but rather to know if this is a valid concern if an aggressive competitor gets ambitious.

 

[rogerke]

What you are asking for is negative seo, and in most cases it never works the way you want. Very often you increase your competitors rankings.

You couldn't be more wrong dude. Negative SEO is very real and works like a charm if you know what you're doing. Gyunman82 is right the sites won't get deindexed (at least I've never seen it), but you won't rank for anything anymore.

Obviously I never resorted to these tactics and only heard it through the grapevine blablabla, but why answer a question when it's obvious you have no clue what you're talking about?

 

[WhiteHatTryHard]

Yes you can. IF the site is small enough and already doing shady stuff.

HOWEVER

Usually, the sites people want to attack are strong, healthy, competent sites with brand singlans and a heap of positive singals.

You will not be able to do anything to an established brand. Dont even try.

You are throwing money away.

People have invested tens of thousands of dollars to take my brand down... all wasted. I went down for a month only to come back even stronger.

 

[WhiteHatTryHard]

I've heard rumors like you could actually make your competitor's site stronger by doing that. Either way, I wouldn't try it.

That on the other hand is not true..
...that is what someone says that knows that it works.

It works in spammy niches (which most of you are in).

The reson why most BHW people are against it is because they want to be the only ones who exploit it. - It works very well in spammy niches (diet, casino, lawyers, bets ect...)

With other words

nSEO works against spammy sites

The sites owned by people on this forum are the ones that it would work against and that is why they do not recommend it. They dont want to be targeted^^