It never ends when it comes to crime and those who just cannot compete honestly.
This goes big time regarding your SEO and reputation on the web. There are unscrupulous people all over the planet who plot and plan and engage in tactics so dishonest that it has become a plague. It costs law enforcement billions to combat and ten times that much when it comes to corporations and individuals. Just one negative attack on your site could cost you a great deal of traffic, income, and reputation that will take incredible amounts of resources to remedy.
Black Hat techniques used by others are the biggest problem. Some businesses see that your business or site is getting a huge amount of attention and revenue and they want it. They can’t produce enough quality content to best you, so instead they plan an attack. They will do this on their own or hie someone else to do it. Because these criminals are so savvy in the way the web works and how search engines operate, they an apply a number of tactics to bring you down.
Fighting these hoodlums is a chore. They mask themselves using a wide range of tactics and technology, but it doesn’t always work. That’s your best defense. Sooner or later they will make a mistake, leave a footprint, that specialists can grab hold of and do some detective work and track them down.
You have to understand something, cyber security isn’t the government’s strong point. Just the recent headlines of the past few years proves this out. Major breaches in government and industry’s best sites seem to occur monthly and those are only the breaches that we’re being told about. There’s no telling how many breaches there really are and how much damage they do. Going to law enforcement is a good step, but don’t expect much as the manpower an savvy just aren’t there. The US, for example, has been so slow in training and hiring cyber security personnel that the criminals outnumber the good guys a thousand to one and that’s being a conservative number.
Most attacks are on a personal or competitive basis regarding corporations and individuals. Someone you may have offended on a message board or Facebook, can turn into a nightmare a these people can access criminals from all over the world to do their dirty work.
There are some preventative measures regarding negative SEO, and detective work you can do on your own. One is to keep tabs on your statistics, see where the drops in traffic are coming from and what strange inbound links are occurring. If for example on June 1, you notice a drastic drop in traffic and rankings, you’ll need to check your stats to see which links dropped and why. You then contact them and ask why they dropped you. If they respond that they saw a negative comment about you or your business, demand to know where that comment came from. If they hesitate let them know you’ll notify law enforcement and a lawyer to get them to do so. This will make them perk up because if the attack is indeed of a level of criminality, their non compliance could lead to them being liable. Your attorney and the police will advise you here.
There are services that specialize in tracking down such attacks. Look them over, check their reviews, and dig in. Nipping the problem in the bud could lead to a big windfall in civil court for you and aid law enforcement too.
