You work hard to build your website’s traffic and rankings. But what if someone tries to tear it all down? That’s what Negative SEO does—it’s when others use dirty tricks to hurt your site’s position in search results.

This can be done through spammy backlinks, false reviews, or even content duplication to mislead search engines. These attacks can bring your rankings down and hurt your reputation.

In this article, you will discover what negative SEO is, how it can hurt your site, and, most importantly, how to defend yourself against it. Let’s ensure your hard work is secure.

What is Negative SEO?

Negative SEO is when someone tries to mess with your website on purpose to make it rank lower on Google. Instead of focusing on improving their own site, they try to hurt yours. This can mean fewer visitors to your website and damage to your online reputation.

It’s like having someone badmouth your company. They may create a whole spam network of links back to your website, steal your content, or fake leave reviews so your site is ugly to the search engines.

Google is pretty good at spotting these tricks, but some can still slip through. They can harm your site if you do not watch out. That is why you must know what negative SEO is and keep an eye on your site.

Jellyfish, a digital marketing agency, experienced a negative SEO attack when attackers flooded their site with spammy backlinks. This caused a sharp drop in their search rankings.

Source: cognitiveseo

This highlights the need for regular backlink monitoring and strong security.

Source: cognitiveseo

In the following sections, we will discuss how these attacks occur and how you can defend your website against them.

Is Negative SEO Still a Threat in 2025?

Yes, negative SEO remains a problem in 2025, but it is no longer as easy to implement as it once was. Search engines like Google are getting more advanced at recognizing malicious strategies. But that does not render your site 100% safe.

Today, negative SEO isn’t just about spammy links. People are getting smarter with their tricks. They might post fake bad reviews about your business or copy your content to confuse search engines. Some might even try to remove good links from your site by pretending to be you. These sneaky moves can hurt your website if you’re not watching closely

If you’re curious if you should be concerned—yes, but don’t freak out. Negative SEO isn’t as strong as it once was, but don’t ignore it. The best thing to do is monitor your site. Watch for anything out of the ordinary, such as traffic drops or toxic backlinks you didn’t build.

In 2025, negative SEO is still out there, but staying alert and acting fast can protect your hard work.

7 Common Types of Negative SEO Attacks

Understanding the different ways in which negative SEO attacks are carried out is the initial step towards securing your website. These attacks can quietly harm your rankings and reputation if you do not understand them in time. The most prevalent ways in which you should be cautious are mentioned below.

1. Website Hacking and Unauthorized Changes

Website hacking is one of the most harmful negative SEO attacks. It happens when someone breaks into your site and changes things to hurt your search rankings. But how do hackers actually get in? Here’s how it usually happens:

• Weak Passwords: Hackers like to attempt weak passwords to access websites. If your password is weak, like “123456” or “password,” it is the same as leaving your door wide open. If they succeed, they can upload spammy links or manipulate your website content.
• Fake Emails (Phishing): Hackers might send emails that look real but aren’t. They pretend to be from your hosting company or website tools. If you click on their links or give them your login info, they get full access to your site.
• Adding Bad Code: Once hackers are inside, they can add harmful code to your website. This code can hide spammy links on your pages, send your visitors to shady sites, or block Google from seeing your site.
• Changing Site Settings: Hackers might change your robots.txt file. This file tells Google how to look at your site. If they change it, Google might stop showing your site in search results.
• Redirecting Visitors: Sometimes hackers will set up redirects that send your visitors to other websites. These sites are typically spammy or malicious, hurting your reputation and your search engine rankings.
• Old Software: You don’t update your website software, plugins, or themes, and the hackers can find vulnerabilities in the older code. The vulnerabilities provide an opening for them to sneak in and hijack your site.

2. Spamming with Toxic Backlinks

This attack is simple but dangerous. It happens when someone points out a lot of bad links on your website. These are from spammy, low-quality websites and are known as toxic backlinks.

Google uses the links to your website to decide if your website is reliable. If you have too many negative links, Google might think you’re trying to manipulate. This can lower your website’s search results.

What Do These Links Look Like?

• Links from spammy websites like gambling or adult sites.
• Links from unrelated sites that have nothing to do with your business.
• Links that repeat the same keyword over and over.
• Links from websites that have been hacked.

These links can build up without you knowing. You might see a drop in your rankings or traffic before realizing something’s wrong. It’s a sneaky way for competitors or bad actors to make your site look suspicious.

3. Removal of Your Quality Backlinks

This attack happens when someone tricks websites into removing the good links that point to your site. These are links from trusted sites that help your rankings.

The attacker pretends to be you. They email the site owner, claiming they’re from your team, and ask to remove the link. Sometimes, they say the link is outdated or no longer needed. If the site owner believes them, the link gets taken down.

Good backlinks are important for your SEO. Losing them can lower your rankings and reduce your website traffic. You might not notice it right away, but over time, it can hurt your site’s performance.

Competitors might do this to weaken your SEO. By removing your best links, they make it easier for their sites to rank higher than yours.

4. Posting Fake Negative Reviews

Fake negative reviews are when someone posts false, bad comments about your business online. These reviews are meant to hurt your reputation and scare away customers.

Negative comments show up on Google, Yelp, and review sites. If people see many negative reviews, they will not come to your store. That might mean fewer customers and lost sales.

Why Are Fake Reviews a Problem?

Reviews play a big role in how businesses show up in Google searches, especially in local SEO. Businesses with better reviews rank higher. Fake negative reviews can lower your ratings and push you down in search results.

What Do Fake Reviews Look Like?

• Reviews from people who never used your service.
• Complaints that are vague or don’t match what your business offers.
• A sudden flood of bad reviews in a short time, often with similar wording.

In 2022, many restaurants in America were hit with fake one-star reviews on Google. After posting the bad reviews, scammers asked the restaurant owners for money to remove them.

5. Unauthorized Use of Your Images (Hotlinking)

Hotlinking is when other people use your pictures on their site but take the pictures from your server rather than hosting them. That is what is causing it to do so every time their page is loaded, it is taking from the resources of your site.

Source: keycdn

Why Is Hotlinking a Problem?

Hotlinking uses up your bandwidth. If enough people do this, it can slow down your website. A slow website means longer load times, which frustrates visitors and can lower your Google rankings. This kind of attack is often called bandwidth theft.

How Does It Affect Your SEO?

Site speed is important for SEO. The slower your site, the lower it can rank in search results. Plus, if your site crashes or becomes unreliable, it can hurt your reputation with visitors and search engines.

Sometimes, people hotlink just to save time or avoid using their own storage. But in negative SEO

6. Copying and Republishing Your Content

This attack happens when someone steals your content and posts it on their website without your permission.

Why is this bad?

Google likes fresh, original content. When the same content shows up on different websites, Google may not know which one to trust. Sometimes, the copied version ranks higher, and it looks like you copied them.

How does this hurt your website?

• Your site may lose rankings because Google gets confused about who owns the content.
• Visitors might find the stolen version first and skip your site altogether.
• It makes you look bad if people think you’re copying someone else’s work.

Why would someone do this?

Some people do it to fill up their site with content they didn’t create. Others use it as a negative SEO attack to mess with your rankings. This kind of attack can be hard to spot unless you regularly check if your content is being used without your permission.

7. Creating Fake Social Media Accounts

These fake accounts can trick your customers. They might post false information, fake deals, or even scam people. This can confuse your audience and hurt your brand’s reputation.

• People might believe the fake account is real and lose trust in your brand.
• Fake accounts can post harmful or offensive content that makes your business look bad.
• Scammers can trick your customers, leading to bad reviews and lost business.

Competitors might do it to harm your brand, or scammers might do it to steal from your customers. Either way, it damages your online presence and trust with your audience.

It used to be easy to spot fake social media accounts by looking for a verified badge. But after platforms like Twitter (now called X) started selling blue ticks, scammers took advantage of this. They began creating fake accounts to trick people and hurt companies’ reputations.

How to Defend Against Negative SEO Attacks

In this section, we’ll cover simple steps you can take to keep your site safe from these harmful tactics.

1. Strengthen Your Website Security

Keeping your website secure is one of the best ways to stop negative SEO attacks. If hackers can’t get in, they can’t harm your site.

Simple ways to secure your website:

• Use Strong Passwords: Don’t use easy passwords like “123456” or “password.” Make them hard to guess by using a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols. Change your passwords often.
• Keep Everything Updated: Update your website platform, plugins, and themes regularly. Updates fix security problems that hackers try to exploit.
• Add Security Plugins: Use tools like Wordfence or Sucuri to protect your site. These plugins can block hackers and alert you if there’s suspicious activity.
• Turn on Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) This adds an extra step when logging in, like a code sent to your phone. Even if someone guesses your password, they won’t get in without the code.
• Back-Up Your Website: Make regular backups of your website. If something goes wrong, you can quickly restore your site to how it was before.

By taking these simple steps, you can protect your website from hackers and keep your search rankings safe.

2. Enable Google Search Console Alerts

Google Search Console is a free tool that helps you keep track of your website’s health. By turning on alerts, you’ll know right away if something goes wrong.

How to Turn On Alerts?

1. Log in to Google Search Console.
2. Add and verify your website if you haven’t already.
3. Go to Settings on the left-hand side.
4. Turn on Email Notifications to get alerts whenever Google detects an issue.

What Will You Get Alerts For?

• If your site gets hacked.
• If there are strange spikes in backlinks.
• If Google can’t access your site.
• If Google issues a penalty or manual action against your site.

With these alerts, you can react quickly to problems and keep your site safe from negative SEO attacks.

3. Regularly Check Your Backlink Profile

Your backlink profile shows all the websites linking to your site. Checking it often helps you spot bad links that could hurt your rankings.

How to Check Your Backlink Profile?

• Use tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to see who’s linking to your site.
• Look for links from spammy, unrelated websites.
• Watch out for sudden jumps in backlinks. If you see a lot of new links overnight, it could be a sign of an attack.

What to Do if You Find Bad Links?

If you spot spammy links, use Google’s Disavow Tool to tell Google to ignore them when ranking your site.

By checking your backlinks regularly, you can catch problems early and protect your site from harmful links.

4. Monitor Your Important Backlinks

Good backlinks from trusted websites help your site rank higher. If you lose these links, your rankings can drop.

How to Track Your Backlinks?

• Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Search Console to see who links to your site.
• Make a list of your most important links—these usually come from big, trusted websites.
• Set up alerts to get notified if any of these links disappear.

What to Do if a Link is Removed?

If a good link is gone, contact the website owner. They may have removed it by mistake and can put it back. If it was a negative SEO attack, take extra steps to protect your other links.

By watching your important backlinks, you can catch problems early and keep your site strong in search results.

5. Safeguard Your Original Content

Your original content is worth your website’s rankings. If it gets copied and republished without your consent, it can damage your SEO.

How to Safeguard Your Content?

• Set Up Google Alerts: Select distinctive phrases from your work and receive an alert if they get published on other websites.
• Use Plagiarism Checkers: Copyscape or Grammarly are websites that can assist you in finding copies of your work online.
• Add Copyright Notices: A copyright notice on your website is a simple reminder to others that your work is copyrighted.

What to Do If Someone Steals Your Content?

If you find your content copied on another site, reach out to the site owner and ask them to take it down. If they ignore you, file a DMCA takedown request to remove the stolen content from search results.

By regularly checking and protecting your content, you can keep your site ranking strong and maintain your credibility.

6. Identify and Report Fake Social Accounts

Fake social media accounts pretending to be your business can confuse customers and hurt your reputation.

How to Spot Fake Accounts?

• Look for Name Changes: Fake accounts often copy your name but with small changes, like missing letters or added symbols.
• Check the Content: If posts don’t match your usual style or message, it might be a fake account.
• Review the Followers: Fake accounts usually have very few followers or a bunch of random ones.

What to Do If You Find a Fake Account?

• Report It: Most platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have tools to report fake accounts. Use them to flag the account.
• Warn Your Customers: Let your followers know about the fake account and guide them to your real page.
• Contact Platform Support: If reporting doesn’t work, reach out directly to the platform’s support team to get the fake account removed.

By staying alert and reporting fake accounts quickly, you can protect your business and keep your audience’s trust.

7. Keep an Eye on Your Online Reviews

Online reviews shape how people see your business. Fake negative reviews can hurt your reputation and drive customers away.

How to Spot Fake Reviews?

• Vague Comments: Fake reviews often don’t mention specific details about your business.
• Suspicious Profiles: Look for reviewers with no photo, no other reviews, or accounts that don’t seem real.
• Sudden Spike in Bad Reviews: A flood of negative reviews in a short time could mean a negative SEO attack.

What to Do About Fake Reviews?

• Report Them: Platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook allow you to report fake reviews.
• Respond Calmly: Even if a review is fake, respond politely. This shows other customers you care about feedback.
• Encourage Real Reviews: Ask happy customers to leave honest reviews to balance out any fake ones.

Regularly checking your reviews helps protect your business and build trust with your customers.

Conclusion

Negative SEO can be a headache, but it’s not the end of the world. If you stay alert and protect your website, you can stop most attacks before they do real harm. Focus on creating great content, building honest backlinks, and keeping your site secure. Over time, good practices will help your website grow and stay strong.

FAQs About Negative SEO