Negative SEO? Hacked Site?

[Andrew Shotland]

I was doing some research for a potential new dental client and saw one of their competitors got ~3K new linking domains in the past month, which is kind of aggressive IMO lol. Further investigation found most of the links have anchors that look like they are for a gambling or porn site. Seems like a negative SEO attack, but looks like it's having the opposite effect. Anyhow just procrastinating and thought you all would enjoy this.

 

[Conor Treacy]

3000 domains, or 3000 links.

3000 domains are definitely aggressive. 3000 links can happen just by adding links to the footer of a site, sometimes (or a forum signature).

That said, I've never REALLY understood negative SEO campaigns - they nearly always have some form of positive impact until it gets out of control and then turns negative (from what I read), but I've never seen an SEO campaign really go negative with any of our clients. We've had people buy crappy backlinks and point to our clients, but for the most part, they give a slight boost until they fall off.

Granted, I'm not dealing with massive sites either!

One story I will share was back in the 2010-2012 time frame, I think, I ran a web hosting company. A client ran a massive web hosting forum, and as a thank you, he added our site in the footer. Overnight, we received 100,000+ links, and our site was removed from organic listings. It took time to track down what happened, but once removed, after 3 weeks, we reappeared. I know people say the sandbox doesn't exist, but the ulcers I received tell a different story Serious concerns about the future of the business when not listed in Google.

 

[Andrew Shotland]

3000 domains, or 3000 links.

3000 domains are definitely aggressive. 3000 links can happen just by adding links to the footer of a site, sometimes (or a forum signature).

That said, I've never REALLY understood negative SEO campaigns - they nearly always have some form of positive impact until it gets out of control and then turns negative (from what I read), but I've never seen an SEO campaign really go negative with any of our clients. We've had people buy crappy backlinks and point to our clients, but for the most part, they give a slight boost until they fall off.

Granted, I'm not dealing with massive sites either!

One story I will share was back in the 2010-2012 time frame, I think, I ran a web hosting company. A client ran a massive web hosting forum, and as a thank you, he added our site in the footer. Overnight, we received 100,000+ links, and our site was removed from organic listings. It took time to track down what happened, but once removed, after 3 weeks, we reappeared. I know people say the sandbox doesn't exist, but the ulcers I received tell a different story Serious concerns about the future of the business when not listed in Google.

3k domains. So far looks like these guys are ulcer-free

 

[Andrew Shotland]

3k domains. So far looks like these guys are ulcer-free

Most of them look Turkish