Negative SEO - is this really going to happen??

ryannull said:

In my opinion, Google sets us up to fall.

Look at the seo history. Matt is always running his mouth preaching to others how to improve your serps, such as article marketing, blog comments, forum signatures, do follow links, and now it's anchor text. Then, the next update or so, the algorithm targets his recommendations. I don't listen to his bs, because that is what it is, bs.

Go back and watch his older videos. I don't know how Google hasn't been sued yet. Matt is an employee of Google and is CLEARLY misrepresenting webmasters.

Just my observation.

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Yeah, I've seen a couple of those videos where he tells you to post articles for links and forum posts. You could sue for loss of income but you would have to prove that it was those precise links that caused your drop (impossible without looking at the algorithm) and a host of other stuff that big G lawyers could snake their way around easily.

I have been thinking of starting a negative seo campaign myself and this is just making me want to do it more. Lots of crappy links (xrumer profiles and wikis you say? anything worse? ) directly at the domain do not vary the keyword HALT | ALLSTOP then upload the list of links you created to ping the fuck out of them? Thats it?

Reading this thread made me sad. This is not business, nor how it's conducted. This is an online game right now.

I hope Google realizes the amount of real world damage that will come of allowing the use of SEO to sabotage other people.

This will increase spam to machine gun levels, not stop it. Poor sites will rank due to good sites being Neg SEO'd, then Google will change the algo, and then there will be a rush to build quality properties and links, and then the algo will change again...

over 60% of the battery power used in an iphone app is to send and retrieve ads. Do people have any idea the environmental impact of thousands of people blasting millions of links across thousands of computers? Google is causing so much fucking pollution, it's absurd. They claim to be carbon zero? Fucking lies; they're just taking the wrong sample data to make those claims.

Here's what needs to happen. There needs to be someone that opens up a Negative SEO service here. They need to have a nice sales page and make it look legit, but the actual service is going to be fake. People that are interested in buying it have to send a PM first to see if they "qualify" (certain amount of posts here, Jr. VIP, etc.). At that point, the service creator will tell them how it's fake but to comment on the thread about how it's working. Boom. It blows up without even having to provide a service. It then gets tons of press and Google is forced to come out and say wether or not it's possible.

jb2008 said:

kmvc, you mention that the "real SEO experts" will find a way to the top by adapting sooner or later. well, just a month ago I thought I was a pretty badass seo compared to most newbs who try it and fail. i was doing everything "right", now that "right" is completely fucking wrong. it's like a man who gets pleasure from sex with women one day, then the next day he gets equal pleasure from running as far away as possible from women who want to have sex with him. There is also a bizarre randomness with this update that I have never seen before. I can do the exact same thing to two sites, and one will go up and stay there, the other will tank. You're more likely to get success if you are just plain lucky rather than an expert at the moment.

I also agree that what Google is doing is in fact illegal and it will get what's coming to it, in due course. It will take time for laws to catch up but it will happen. It's unfortunate that, at the moment, BHers are fighting amongst themselves, spamming eachother to the oblivion. It really is ideal for them, change the algo, let us kill eachother off rather than them doing all the work. It's very economical for them if you think about it. Add to that all the people giving up and flocking to Adwords. It's so good it should be illegal - but it's not!

YET

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I am taking issue with you on the legality of what G is doing but not to be argumentative, I assure you. A buddy of mine is an attorney for a law firm specializing in intellectual property rights and internet law such as it is and we discussed the matter over a few drinks yesterday.

He says that it's G's search engine and G's advertizing program and that G can make the rules for its own shit. G is essentially saying, "If you want to appear in our search engine, you must play by our rules! If you want to be a part of our money-making network, you must also play by our rules!"

Now this does NOT mean that all this shit is right and I don't think it is and I sure as Hell do not want any kind of "regulation" or censorship of the 'net!

And who ceded control of the 'net to G, anyway?

I'll tell you who did!

The people who chose to play by Google's rules, that's who and they have no one to blame but themselves. Anyone could have seen this coming a long time ago and some of us did. It means that there will be a massive, across-the-board return to legal, CAN-SPAM compliant email marketing for starters and I'm all about that. It also means that guys who have worked for months or even years on sites which have fallen out of search result will just say "Fuck it!" and go to plain old-fashioned spamming and I will not be able to blame them! I predict a rise in spam such as we have never seen and I'm not writing about pre-2003; I'm thinking about huge spam operations because it's just too easy and takes so little to set up and run.

It means that SEO as we have known it will no longer work with in the G system. It doesn't mean that there isn't money to be made, because there is and a lot of it. I think that for the next year or so what we term "Negative SEO" is going to be big business.............................

I'm not sure that's good.

On the other hand, there is a lot of money in all this if you think about it........................................................

I think it depends.

few weeks ago, i blasted a competitor with 55k of blog comments. Now, its still there. It didnt bulge.

johnnyflex said:

Now, its still there. It didnt bulge.

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That's what she said.

Sorry Johnny, couldn't resist. That was the best typo ever.

Lmao!!

CyberknightTully said:

He says that it's G's search engine and G's advertizing program and that G can make the rules for its own shit. G is essentially saying, "If you want to appear in our search engine, you must play by our rules! If you want to be a part of our money-making network, you must also play by our rules!"

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Your friend is right. It is Google's property and they can make the rules.

Moreover, they can't have representatives of their company go on record, or should I say video, explaining what you can do to improve your serps. Then, to contradict itself and target those exact types of methods they preach. But, the big problem, as someone mentioned above, is proving it harmed you and your business. It would be pretty hard to prove.

ryannull said:

Your friend is right. It is Google's property and they can make the rules.

Moreover, they can't have representatives of their company go on record, or should I say video, explaining what you can do to improve your serps. Then, to contradict itself and target those exact types of methods they preach. But, the big problem, as someone mentioned above, is proving it harmed you and your business. It would be pretty hard to prove.

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Unless the FTC or EC actually gets a look at the algorithm, then it would be easy to prove.

CashGrower007 said:

A competitor blasted around 10k spam blog comments to my site, a week later it got a -50 penalty.

Somehow I found out who it was... I went and retaliated, I fired 60k blog comments at it and guess what? It increased in rankings! lol

It's been a few weeks and I've yet to see any penalties on his site.

Weird... I guess I'll have to wait and see.

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Only 60K?

You did not do it right!

LOL!

I agree with "its googles shit, it can do what it wants". its freedom. HOWEVER how about Monopoly laws. Google, ebay, any of them... if a decent competitor comes along, they simply buy it and keep force us to do its will. AND THEY HAVE NO CUSTOMER SERVICE. thats what i hate most about the internet. we are "forced" to use one of these sites that is nothing more than a bully, they dont allow competition ... and they have NO CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!! fb is work 100 billion?? but yet are the biggest pieces of crap out there.

CyberknightTully said:

I am taking issue with you on the legality of what G is doing but not to be argumentative, I assure you. A buddy of mine is an attorney for a law firm specializing in intellectual property rights and internet law such as it is and we discussed the matter over a few drinks yesterday.

He says that it's G's search engine and G's advertizing program and that G can make the rules for its own shit. G is essentially saying, "If you want to appear in our search engine, you must play by our rules! If you want to be a part of our money-making network, you must also play by our rules!"

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Your "friend" obviously is completely unfamiliar with anti-trust laws
I will point you to the definition and why it's illegal (the fact google does this is indisputable as far as I'm aware, it's just a matter of if they can bribe their way out of it right now with the FTC):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

Please note this area in particular:
"banning abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal, and many others."

Not only is what google is doing illegal, it is the kind of stuff that gets companies broken into pieces (Microsoft in the early 90s comes to mind immediately)
Please see the chief complaints and who they're being lodged by. The EC is not taking this as a "joke" or something google can "legally" do:
http://gulfnews.com/business/econom...google-with-formal-anti-trust-probe-1.1027759

Not to mention their data mining practices being potentially highly illegal by FCC regulations, their anti-trust practices are truly without caveat. They are the fundamental definition of this kind of illegal act.
I highly doubt the US government will take necessary actions, however, but Oracle's suit is something that can hit google where it hurts at least... if the verdict goes their way.

Expertpeon said:

...it's just a matter of if they can bribe their way out of it right now with the FTC):..

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There is no way any Gov regulators will ever step up to Google. There may one day be a formal dog and pony show but nothing will come of it.

http://www.truthistreason.net/sec-dropping-lehman-brothers-case-ends-probe-without-finding-fraud

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/opinion/nocera-is-mf-global-getting-a-free-pass.html

http://www.lasvegastribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2481:jp-morgan-loss-did-us-regulators-know-what-ceo-jamie-dimon-apparently-didnt&catid=49:unclassified-news&Itemid=243

Google has set the stage to make massive short term profits through Adwords. In the end the white hat sheep will cry so loud for big brother to regulate the internet (from warring web masters) these past few years of Internet freedom will sound like a fairytale when told to future generations.

Expertpeon said:

Your "friend" obviously is completely unfamiliar with anti-trust laws
I will point you to the definition and why it's illegal (the fact google does this is indisputable as far as I'm aware, it's just a matter of if they can bribe their way out of it right now with the FTC):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

Please note this area in particular:
"banning abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal, and many others."

Not only is what google is doing illegal, it is the kind of stuff that gets companies broken into pieces (Microsoft in the early 90s comes to mind immediately)
Please see the chief complaints and who they're being lodged by. The EC is not taking this as a "joke" or something google can "legally" do:
http://gulfnews.com/business/econom...google-with-formal-anti-trust-probe-1.1027759

Not to mention their data mining practices being potentially highly illegal by FCC regulations, their anti-trust practices are truly without caveat. They are the fundamental definition of this kind of illegal act.
I highly doubt the US government will take necessary actions, however, but Oracle's suit is something that can hit google where it hurts at least... if the verdict goes their way.

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Oh, no, he knows a ton about anti-trust but doesn't hink that Google is worried about it in the least. As far as the EC goes, I'm sure that all of Google are shaking in their respective boots and unable to sleep at night. The EC better watch out because Google may decide that it is less expensive to simply BUY Europe, most of which is dead-assed broke anyway.

The FCC stung the shit out of Google for violation of Section 705 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 (As Amended) with a whopping $25,000.00 fine. Wonder what Google will have to mortgage to pay that one?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/91652398/FCC-Report-on-Google-Street-View-personal-data-mining

The thing is that a given action is not finally "illegal" until a court says it is and the FCC, the FTC and the EC can assess all they fines they want but these can be challenged in court and such challenges can and do sometimes last for years. I would imagine that the whole anti-trust issue is applicable to Google which could end up having interesting results in that Google has enough money to simply end some of its programs like Adwords and Adsense and I would not put such an action past them if things get to hairy. Google could simply invest in any number of tax-free instruments or even taxable and still earn billions yearly without the Google stock dropping a single cent.

Google could also become a paid-results-only search engine. If you don't pay, you don't appear which action would essentially make Google an advertising agency or a classified ad site. With the psychology out there telling us that we can't live without Google search results people and businesses would pony right up I think!

Breaking up monopolies is not always a good idea as the breakup of ATT clearly demonstrated. The whole phone system in the USA was a mess for years and still really hasn't settled out and anyway, whatever actions might be brought against Google wouldn't be settled for years as Google has enough money to hire half the lawyers in the USA. It's going to be very interesting to see how all this shakes out but as for myself, I'm moving to things much less reliant on search results and recoommend that others do so as well.

I got attacked. Yesterday I went from page #1 to #64 for about 24 kws. I know it was the guy above me. He is probably a member here, based on the niche.

We offer different products and so I think his attack was unwarranted and foolish. Sometimes you should leave sleeping dogs lie.
I went straight to the WMDs

that sucks. but im guessing 95% og im'ers worth their salt is a member here

my site suddenly felt from first page to page 9 at main kw. While my second kw is still sitting at #3. I think i'm a victim of negative SEO.

Is there any way to check how many backlinks i got recently. I used Majestic SEO but i dont see anything unusual.