It’s a tactic that’s arguably as old as search engine optimization (SEO) itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SEO spam, often referred to as spamdexing, basically has the same core goal as any other black hat tactic. Rather than working to gradually build up one’s web presence and generate revenue organically, it attempts to take a fast-tracked shortcut to make money \u2014 using someone else’s website to promote content that wouldn’t appear on the search engine results page otherwise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As you might expect, this has the potential to destroy both your website and your brand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re safe from SEO spam injection if you’re a smaller business, either. If anything, the fact that you’re a smaller entity makes you a more <\/em>attractive target, as smaller organizations are likely to have a careless attitude or lack a proper security budget. To make matters worse, since attacks of this nature are difficult to detect, they can remain hidden in plain sight for a long time, causing exponentially more damage as time goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, by knowing the signs of spamdexing: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Note that in addition to looking for the above signs manually, you can use a tool such as Ahrefs to check your backlink profile, or a third-party scanner designed to detect the presence of SEO spam. Either way, once you’ve determined you’re the victim of spamdexing, the next step is to figure out how it happened. How did hackers gain access to your site? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Generally speaking, it’s because of poor security. Failing to keep things updated, using weak passwords or credentials, and so on. The good news is that this means protecting yourself from SEO spam isn’t actually that difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maintaining your reputation and trust is more important than ever before. Spamdexing, although it’s not as dangerous a tactic as it was five years ago, can still damage both. It’s therefore critical that you’re proactive with your website’s security \u2014 because that is, and always will be the best way to keep yourself safe from SEO spam. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whether or not spamdexing actually works, it can cause serious problems for your website and audience. Here’s what you can do to protect yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t