“Negative SEO” – Harming Your Competitors With SEO

The Saboteurs Of Search from Forbes has been getting some buzz from around the search industry. In short, the article interviews two SEOs about how they can potentially use “negative SEO” tactics to harm a site in Google.

The other day, I reported at Search Engine Roundtable about companies offering to do this type of work. So the Forbes article is pretty timely.

Google’s Matt Cutts is quoted in the Forbes article, confirming that it is possible to hurt a site’s ranking but says it’s unlikely: “I won’t go out on a limb and say it’s impossible.”

The article details seven ways to “sabotage” a site’s rankings in Google:

(1) Google Bowling
(2) Tattling
(3) Google Insulation
(4) Copyright Takedown Notices
(5) Copied Content
(6) Denial of Service
(7) Click Fraud

Infamous black hat SEO, Fantomaster has decided to post his own Fighting Dirty techniques. But he also shared how one can protect themselves from “negative SEO.”