Tips for Dealing with Negative SEO and Site Scrapers

[Webzcas]

So many of you may know that my main site over the past 12 months or so has been subjected to multiple negative seo attacks.

The first one I documented here

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

on the 15th May 2017. This particular negative seo attack took place, pretty much soon after I dumped both AffPower and also Affiliate Edge and their group of casinos in OCR's shit pit.

Well in April this year I received this comment, which I attach below, on one of my YouTube videos. The video in question being my video review of Guts Casino. Anyone who operates a YouTube Channel, will know that you, as the channel owner, gets notified when any comments on any of your videos are put in place.

The date of this particular comment was 3rd April 2018. Subsequently several days later, a shit load of .pp.ua domains were set up. With around 82 pages populated on them, using the entire content from my Microgaming Casinos page which can be found here

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

These domains were then redirecting after a second to a Russian casino portal hosting on the .pp.ua sites. In addition to these domains there were also a couple of .ru domains set up. All using my content and then redirecting to these portals.

Here is an example of what google sees:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Why use my content? Well if done multiple times, which in this instance is exactly what happened, the perpetrator would hope that my site would get hit by PANDA, seeing that my content is on many other pages. As google would crawl the scraped content.

Additionally my content obviously links to other parts of my site. So you have hundreds ( Actually thousands ) of links all pointing back to my site from these shitty domains. Thus the perpetrator would hope my site would also get hit by the PENGUIN algorithm.

Whilst I have no concrete proof who is behind this attack, anyone with an IQ of higher than 5 can work out who or whom it is.

The reason I am writing this post is two fold. To give my fellow webmasters a heads up as to what to do if you are subjected to something similar. Plus to let my friend who left the YouTube comment know that, despite your very best efforts. I am still very much here

OK, so how does one go about dealing with this. It is a PITA to be honest, but the following is something every webmaster should schedule into their task list every day.

1) Check backlinks daily. Don't just use Webmaster Tools, but also utilise one of the professional software suites such as SEMRush, Majestic SEO or Link Research Tools.
2) If the links you see look bad. Disavow them. The Google Disavow Tool can be accessed here:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

3) Sign up to

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

and get your site protected. This adds weight when performing step 4 below.
4) File a Copyright Removal request with google. They are super quick and do act. Indeed, just this morning they removed one of the .ru domains from their index which was utilising my content. You can access the tool here:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

 

[Webzcas]

Just to add, that comment above was left by someone in the UK according to YouTube Analytics. I wonder who that could be.......

I've got some rogue listings that need updating........

 

[Webzcas]

Also to add, that google cache page has now gone as google have acted on my DMCA Report and removed it from their index.

 

[Webzcas]

Ok an update on this. After having several pages of sites taken down and removed from google's index using the google DMCA removal tool, miraculously, my site links have returned in google and my rankings are moving back up.

This proves beyond doubt that Negative SEO does work. But as I have demonstrated you can fight back. You just need to be very vigilant. Check daily for toxic links and keep on top of any sites who scrape your content.

Fair warning. Anyone, whether an individual or a company that scrapes any of my content, I will get it removed from google's index. I am also not going to chase up webmasters who have stolen my content.

 

[Webzcas]

Just a brief update, but after continuing to add new content and updating existing pages within my site. Plus removing from google's index, yet more nefarious duplicate content of mine that has been scraped, I now have the full complement of six site links, when performing a search for my site's name in google.co.uk.

Oh and google is now also showing my specified Meta Title

The only way is up

 

[Webzcas]

Just posting to keep this thread in the conscience of every webmaster out there. There is quite a bit more to add, but the situation is evolving and continuing as I write the message. But there have been some positive developments.

The end result will see me adding a laymans guide both here on CM's Webmaster Section of the site and also my own site's webmaster section, so my peers will be able to fight back ( and effectively so ), should they find themselves and their sites targeted by a negative seo campaign.

One thing to remember and have in mind though is that whatever you do on the internet, no matter how supposedly careful you are, you always, always leave an electronic trail......

Hope who is behind the attack on my site is choking on their coffee as they read that last sentence