How To Penalize Your Competitor's Site in Google

Apr 8, 2008 - 7:56 am 7 by

Juicy title, isn't it? Well, that is the topic of discussion at a WebmasterWorld. A senior member decided to post some generic, not specific examples, ways to hurt a website's Google rankings. Here are some of the methods you can take:

  • Inbound links from "bad" places.
  • Hundreds of links from one IP address.
  • Duplicate content (a) from competitors scraping your entire site and creating their own from it
  • Duplicate content (b) from competitors stealing your articles and submitting them to article submission services
  • 301/302 redirect hijacking (after all this time it STILL happens!

Yes, there are many other ways to do this. Can it happen to your site. I am told it can. Can it happen to a site that has years and years of authority? Hard to believe, but people say yes. Can it happen to an Amazon like site or a Wikipedia? I doubt it is achievable.

The member also added that there is a new method to harm a site's ranking in Google, but said he couldn't give those details:

There is a new one that is very quick to work using 301's that I daren't put in here but a black hat "associate" of mine said she's dropped quite a few of her client's competitors within days!

Watching Google's most recent language, they seem to have moved from saying it is impossible for a competitor to hurt your rankings. Here are some past articles on it, but the language seems to be changing from words that symbolize "impossible" to words like "almost not possible," "very unlikely," and so on.

I use to not feel that this was a major issue or an issue most webmasters should have a valid reason to worry about. I am not convinced that this is no longer an issue for webmasters.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 28, 2024

Mar 28, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Ads

Google Ads Suspended 90% More Advertisers This Year & Removed 5.5 Billion Ads

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Updates Its Definition Of Top Ads; They May Not Be At The Top

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Adds Share Ad Preview For Performance Max

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Can Search For Your Blockchain Wallet Addresses (Bitcoin & More)

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google Maps

New Google Shopping & Maps Search Features

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: More Reports of Google Suggest Feature as Default on Google.com