Is negative SEO illegal?

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rugbyjack2005

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There's loads of threads about negative SEO recently. I can't say i am a big fan as i don't think it is a professional approach. Having said that i would like to do my own tests to see how much authority a site must have before it is immune to most negative seo attacks and wondered what the legality of negative seo was.

I don't own Xrumer myself so i would need to buy gigs on Fiverr which is fairly easy and the people you buy them from don't know your intent (assuming you don't use absuive, irrelevant keywords) but i would like to know if it was illegal or not. I am thinking in terms of test purposes so there are no threat to my sites as i can do it in different niches.

So is negative seo legal?
 
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im sure it will be illlegal someday :D but i guess right now its "just evil".

Anyway.. who can proove that youve behind the 10402932 forum profile spams or something :D
 
Salto said:
Anyway.. who can proove that youve behind the 10402932 forum profile spams or something :D
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It would certainly be very difficult but as it would be through Fiverr, they could track you via PayPal. I know noone would go to those lengths but still.
 
What's the definition of illegal for you? If you mean by doing negative SEO you will be put behind the bars, then its really tough to do so. Nobody knows you sitting at which corner of the earth and under what law they will punish you. But certainly negative SEO is unethical to do specially if you doing it on your competitors site, you should compete in open market and under given circumstances.

Thanks
 
CPAKing11 said:
What's the definition of illegal for you? If you mean by doing negative SEO you will be put behind the bars, then its really tough to do so.
Thanks
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Websites are assets and trying to damage any asset that you dont have any rights over is illegal. I dont understand your definition of illegal...
You think that its hard to prove that a website was harmed by one gazillion of spam links or that its traffic and its profit generation sunk?
 
Doubt it's illegal. However for one you may be starting a war with someone IF they find out. Two it could backfire if google changes the penguin and now the backlinks benefit the website. And three it is really stooping down to a different level. Only way I can see a good idea is doing this to wikis and yahoo answers.
 
CPAKing11 said:
What's the definition of illegal for you? If you mean by doing negative SEO you will be put behind the bars, then its really tough to do so. Nobody knows you sitting at which corner of the earth and under what law they will punish you. But certainly negative SEO is unethical to do specially if you doing it on your competitors site, you should compete in open market and under given circumstances.

Thanks
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But is there any way to find out who is doing negative SEO for my site?
 
Your definition of illegal is correct, but my point is can you catch hold of that person who spammed your site and put him behind the bars?

bakxos said:
Websites are assets and trying to damage any asset that you dont have any rights over is illegal. I dont understand your definition of illegal...
You think that its hard to prove that a website was harmed by one gazillion of spam links or that its traffic and its profit generation sunk?
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That's the main issue to find out who is doing negative SEO on your site, and even if you manage to find out who is doing, then what? What can you get out of him?

queenmery said:
But is there any way to find out who is doing negative SEO for my site?
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queenmery said:
But is there any way to find out who is doing negative SEO for my site?
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The only way would be a guess... see who gains from you falling... if you drop from #1 to #500 at the same time someone is rising from #4 to #1... well, that would be my guess. That is why I've said in the past that if you're on the front page and do this to someone else (or several) on the front page, you are asking to get nuked yourself.

About the only 'smart' way of doing it (if I wanted to check my morals at the door) would be is if I was ranked near the top of the 2nd page for a moderately competitive keyword - would be to nuke the crap out of the top 5 and hope that they suspected the bottom five on the page and returned fire... leaving the top 10 in smoking ruins at the bottom of the SERPS and me at or near the top of the first page. Works well in theory - 100% untested and for me, will remain that way. ;)
 
raticals75 said:
Doubt it's illegal. However for one you may be starting a war with someone IF they find out. Two it could backfire if google changes the penguin and now the backlinks benefit the website. And three it is really stooping down to a different level. Only way I can see a good idea is doing this to wikis and yahoo answers.
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I think it's important to understand how negative SEO works. An authoritative site would be much harder to take down than a new site. Obviously the more competitive the keyword, the more you are putting yourself in the limelight and opening yourself up to negative seo. If you can knock a site that's less than 6 months old with 1x 10k xrumer blast for example which can easily be bought on Fiverr, then its good to know so you can go about protecting yourself (e.g. building authority by targeting less competitive keywords first).
 
rugbyjack2005 said:
It would certainly be very difficult but as it would be through Fiverr, they could track you via PayPal. I know noone would go to those lengths but still.
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nope you need go to the court before paypal release information to there user.
 
rulez05 said:
nope you need go to the court before paypal release information to there user.
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I meant the court! Obviously a competitor doesn't have access to your paypal records but if the person you bought a fiverr gig off reported you for example, they could potentially track you and prove it using PayPal records
 
bakxos said:
Websites are assets and trying to damage any asset that you dont have any rights over is illegal. I dont understand your definition of illegal...
You think that its hard to prove that a website was harmed by one gazillion of spam links or that its traffic and its profit generation sunk?
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So when google damages your assets.... it's not illegal?
 
If you think that you can spend five bucks and plummet somebody's rankings in one go, you are mistaken; if the site is well optimized, aged, and has some solid links, it would take you far more than that and there is zero guarantee that you will ever succeed. The "Negative SEO" term was born in the post-Penguin frenzy and so far, I have seem zero solid proof that it exists; sure, you can probably do some damage to a site if you drop quite a few links on malware infested servers, but using Xrumer, SB or any other link building tool....I seriously doubt that
 
google is a company...they can't decide what is 'illegal'

even if they do decide to take action, your case will go on for forever in the courts because there is no legal precedent...and after that all new cases will cite your case and you will become famous :D
 
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hpv222 said:
If you think that you can spend five bucks and plummet somebody's rankings in one go, you are mistaken; if the site is well optimized, aged, and has some solid links,
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Nope...
I know this keeps you comfortable in your bed at night, but you're beyond incorrect here. However, honestly, what kind of small SEO'd sites are "aged with solid links"?
My guess is you'd need 5-10k links/mth coming in that google just loves (naturally) in order to be somewhat immune to negative SEO. I've done it successfully on large websites even way before the newest changes.

People may honestly suck at doing it, but it's relatively straightforward and age of the site and such is irrelevant.
 
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Quick and short - Seo/Blackhat definition means a big journey to be one step in front of your competitors, not to do damage for other people and their business. It's lamehat and it does negative karma for your life, stop thinking this way.
 
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