Need Help my site got hit by Negative SEO!

[LX911]

Hi, so here's the scenario. I have a blog called -- exampledomain.com with around 10 posts. 1 particular post was ranking pretty much in the 1st page around #3 - #5 spot. One of my competitors spammed the hell out of the post that was ranking. As a result that page is now sticking up at #16 - #20 region. However, the links was build to a non-existent page. I mean the person intentionally did it.

The post url = exampledomain.com/2014/03/i-love-bhw.html
Targeted url = exampledomain.com/2014/03/i-love-bhw-2

As a result I am getting 404 errors notice in the webmaster tools.

How to recover from this situation? I have thought of getting all those shitty backlinks and disavowing them but will that help?

 

[stallion45d]

This is one of the reasons that keeps me away from building sites. Hard work , investment in articles, consuming long hours in SEO and if you are lucky and the site ranks after some months, you get a dickhead trying to destroy all you job.

 

[Headmaster Cid]

You can use the disavow tool to get rid of the spam links. "Counter" it with high quality links and youll see that your competitor will soon realise that he is taking too much time doing negative seo that he forgot to build links onto his own site ��

 

[LX911]

This is one of the reasons that keeps me away from building sites. Hard work , investment in articles, consuming long hours in SEO and if you are lucky and the site ranks after some months, you get a dickhead trying to destroy all you job.

Haha yeah that is so true! But although that is tiresome it is fun It's all part of the journey to success!

 

[Toz]

Disavow & build quality links, as the above poster mentioned, and invest your time into some retention visits to your website. Add a few more posts over the next few days.

 

[LX911]

You can use the disavow tool to get rid of the spam links. "Counter" it with high quality links and youll see that your competitor will soon realise that he is taking too much time doing negative seo that he forgot to build links onto his own site ��

Hmm sounds like a good idea! Any suggestions for "high quality links" in this scenario?

 

[LX911]

Disavow & build quality links, as the above poster mentioned, and invest your time into some retention visits to your website. Add a few more posts over the next few days.

Hmm I have already posted new posts + building social signals to diversify the loss in traffic but really feeling bad about this backbiting!

 

[mickyfu]

I have bad news for you mate. Your competitor knows what he is doing. Unlike the countless of fucking retards that think spamming "child porn" anchors is NSEO.

The only thing I could suggest is redirect the 404 page to somewhere. Preferably your homepage.

 

[dhihi]

Your competitor is a rubbish asshole.

 

[LX911]

I have bad news for you mate. Your competitor knows what he is doing. Unlike the countless of fucking retards that think spamming "child porn" anchors is NSEO.

The only thing I could suggest is redirect the 404 page to somewhere. Preferably your homepage.

oh my god! You are not serious now are you? what will happen if I redirect the 404 page to my homepage? the bad links juice will flow on my homepage directly.. that would be double bad isn't??

 

[mickyfu]

oh my god! You are not serious now are you? what will happen if I redirect the 404 page to my homepage? the bad links juice will flow on my homepage directly.. that would be double bad isn't??

The main problem is the 404 errors and not the links. When a website has mass 404 errors, Google will stop crawling the site. Real NSEO is causing errors to websites.

 

[LX911]

The main problem is the 404 errors and not the links. When a website has mass 404 errors, Google will stop crawling the site. Real NSEO is causing errors to websites.

U just opened my eyes! Now I understand why U are suggesting to redirect the 404 pages! Is there any other way to just out step the competitor cause looks like he has his missles locked on to my site

 

[drogon]

301 the 404 pages to web 2.0 pointing to your website, not to your homepage.

 

[LX911]

301 the 404 pages to web 2.0 pointing to your website, not to your homepage.

So you mean a jump off link system like --
Bad Link >> 404 page(gets redirected) >> Good Web 2.0 ??

So the bad links will pass on to Web 2.0? Is this an effective strategy?

 

[mickyfu]

301 the 404 pages to web 2.0 pointing to your website, not to your homepage.

It is another option, but this way you are sending the Google bot out of your site. And I think it may look a little suspicious if your 404 is linking out your site.

 

[drogon]

So you mean a jump off link system like --
Bad Link >> 404 page(gets redirected) >> Good Web 2.0 ??

So the bad links will pass on to Web 2.0? Is this an effective strategy?

Well personally i have sites ranking very well with numerous 404 errors so i doubt this is your problem but if you have to 301 that page somewhere, then yes better to a we 2.0 than directly to your homepage. Building links to a non existing page should have zero effect on your web site. first i have heard this is neg seo...otherwise i would not be ranking!!

 

[mickyfu]

Well personally i have sites ranking very well with numerous 404 errors so i doubt this is your problem but if you have to 301 that page somewhere, then yes better to a we 2.0 than directly to your homepage. Building links to a non existing page should have zero effect on your web site. first i have heard this is neg seo...otherwise i would not be ranking!!

Then maybe you should try a little research. Self research at best.

 

[drogon]

Then maybe you should try a little research. Self research at best.

I did and 404 errors of invalid links do not have neg effect on your site:

https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/RMjFPCSs5fm

https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/05/do-404s-hurt-my-site.html

http://www.emarketeers.com/e-insight/3-seo-tips-on-error-404-pages

http://webmasters.stackexchange.com...-if-you-have-too-many-404-errors-on-your-site

 

[mickyfu]

I did and 404 errors of invalid links do not have neg effect on your site:

https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/RMjFPCSs5fm

https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/05/do-404s-hurt-my-site.html

http://www.emarketeers.com/e-insight/3-seo-tips-on-error-404-pages

http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/51657/are-penalties-applied-if-you-have-too-many-404-errors-on-your-site

Great. Come back and tell me the same when someone blasts your website with thousands of them. Or maybe you want to put your website where your ultimate nseo wisdom is. I am sure I can show you the negative impact of 404s.

 

[starki]

Sorry, mickyfu, but Drogon is absolutely right. Even a gazillion links to non-existing pages that give a proper 404 won't hurt at all. We personally tested this on a very large scale with an own site, high six digit number of the spammiest links available to 10k made up URLs. 404 nightmare, but zero movement in the SERPs, neither up, nor down. Google ignores those links, Google ignores 404s and 410s. What Google doesn't like is existing, indexed pages often showing errors because of misconfigurations or similar, since they want realiable results.