can negative seo still harm competitors effectively?

On a scale of 1000s of sites, I'd say negative SEO is basically dead.

The Google algos have evolved a lot over the last couple of years - they're just far better at ignoring toxic links than they used to be. What would've tanked a site in 2018 does nothing now. The filter eats it before it ever touches rankings.

The one caveat I'd add: it's not the spam links that scare me anymore, it's the reputation attacks. Fake reviews, false accusations spread across sites - that stuff gets picked up by LLMs and shapes how your brand shows up in AI answers. That's the vector people should actually be watching, not disavow files.

But classic link-spam negative SEO? I'd call it no longer alive.
 
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Seo have become much better at ignoring many types of spammy external signals,nbetter ocus on improving your own site's quality, authority.
 
Grayson Vale said:
I have been seeing mixed opinions about negative SEO lately. some say google is much better now at ignoring spammy or toxic backlinks ,while others believe it can still cause ranking drops if done at scale.

what's your experience does negative SEO still pose a real thread today
Click to expand...
In my opinion, negative SEO is far more difficult to execute than what many think, particullarly if the only thing done is spamming their backlink profile. most sites that struggle have issues such as bad technical SEO practices, poor content, or even an not natural link profile. A solid site will bounce back a lot faster, so why not focus on making the site better?
 
google has improved a lot at ignoring spammy backlinks. in most cases, negative seo isn t as effective as it once was, and strong websites are usually not affected by random toxic links
 
Mohammad Kamran said:
eping an eye on your backlink profile is still a good practice. Would be interesting to hear from anyone who has actually seen rankings drop because of a negative SEO attack recently.
Click to expand...
Recently, GSC reported tons of links to my main money page on my site. All the url slugs indicated they came from porn sites. Every link was an exact match money keyword that my page was targeting. I only lately noticed these but they've been happening for at least 6 months. That coincides with a 90% drop in impressions for that keyword. Coincidence? I think not. Correlation does not mean causation. I am surprised by almost everyone saying stuff like "Google is much better at filtering out spammy links now than previously". That is what Google wants you to believe. The reality I think is different.
 
In many cases, ranking drops happen because of other SEO issues, not only negative SEO. It is important to check everything before blaming backlinks.
 
simon39842 said:
Recently, GSC reported tons of links to my main money page on my site. All the url slugs indicated they came from porn sites. Every link was an exact match money keyword that my page was targeting. I only lately noticed these but they've been happening for at least 6 months. That coincides with a 90% drop in impressions for that keyword. Coincidence? I think not. Correlation does not mean causation. I am surprised by almost everyone saying stuff like "Google is much better at filtering out spammy links now than previously". That is what Google wants you to believe. The reality I think is different.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting case. A large number of spammy links appearing around the same time as a ranking drop is definitely worth investigating, but I'd still be careful about assuming they were the only cause. I'd also compare the timing with Google updates, review the page itself, and check whether competitors made significant improvements. Sometimes multiple factors can overlap.
 
Google is much better at ignoring low quality spam links than it used to be Genuine ranking drops are more often caused by a site's own technical content or backlink issues than by external negative SEO.
 
Grayson Vale said:
I have been seeing mixed opinions about negative SEO lately. some say google is much better now at ignoring spammy or toxic backlinks ,while others believe it can still cause ranking drops if done at scale.

what's your experience does negative SEO still pose a real thread today
Click to expand...
In my experience, Negative SEO is not as effective as it once was, Ranking drops are usually caused by technical problems, content quality, or algorithm updates rather than spam backlink's alone.
 
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