Kick 'em when they're down

Forbes reports the latest trend in boosting a website's cred for the Google algo: not SEO, which is so yesterday, but negative SEO - a direct jab into competitors' territory.

"Negative SEO" is a new label for optimization behavior that, while arguably unethical, is not quite detectable to search engine spiders, rendering it open game to some search engine marketers.

The effects of negative SEO activity can lead to what some call site sabotage. One example of the practice is when an SEO practitioner uses his or her skills to bury a competitor's site deep within the search results of Google or Yahoo, harming site traffic significantly.

"I understand the rules of search," says Brendon Scott, an SEO specialist. "And once you understand the rules, you can use them not just constructively, but also destructively."

Much negative SEO practice today takes advantage of filters put in place by Google and Yahoo to avoid nefarious activity. One such example is the practice of linking: loosely, the more quality links a site has pointing to it, the better it ranks in Google and Yahoo's search results. But abuse of this law, dubbed "link spamming," caused search engines to sniff out artificial linkers, then punish them with a drastically lower site rank.

"If a new site gains half a million links over the course of a weekend, it looks suspect from Google's point of view," said Scott.

"So you make someone look naughty, and then get them caught." This process is called "Google bowling."

While negative SEO specialists seem untroubled by "unethical" marketing activity in cyberspace, they are admirably vigilant about protecting the identities of the companies they assist.

London-based Jason Duke, another negative SEO pro, confirmed, "We don't talk loudly about our clients. Especially the ones we do morally questionable things for."

Duke divulges a base rate of approximately $6,000 per day, with extra charges for particularly tough work.

Negative SEO firms, such as ReputationDefender, can charge around $10,000 per assignment. ReputationDefender can hide unflattering comments about people or enterprises that others have made over the Internet. This tactic is dubbed "Google insulation."

The company also builds positive content about its clients and sets it atop Google or Yahoo results, pushing negative feedback to deeper pages.