reverse SEO

[genie.liam]

What is reverse SEO and how does it work?

[mjtaylor]

If a company name is searched and a page that is not desirable comes up at the top of the SERPs, reverse SEO works to bury the page. Or, in order to increase one's position, one does "reverse seo" on a competitor's page. This is done by black hat techniques, such as "Google Bowling." Here's an old blog post on the technique that might help you understand it. http://optimized-promotion.com/seo/seo-classifications/black-hat-seo/google-bowling-reverse-seo.html

[jmslee123]

Reverse SEO is the processes of technically pushing down your website from the first page of Google.In its simplest terms, reverse SEO is a way of not only knocking adverse publicity about your company off of the first page in Google search or other online search engines, but preventing it from ever getting there in the first place, as well.

[didmac0]

The Process of reverse SEO is intended to remove nagative or unwanted information about the most effective strategies within the search engines' organic listing. It's an online reputation management tool of SEO consultants.

When an individual or company name is being searched in Google, Yahoo, Bing and an undesired page or website appears, we can push the negative page back in the search results where it will rarely, if ever be found. Each circumstance is unique and therefore a custom Online Reputation Management campaign will require a custom SEO quote.

seomarketinservicesindia.com

[govindseo]

If a company name is searched and a page that is not desirable comes up at the top of the SERPs, reverse SEO works to bury the page. Or, in order to increase one's position, one does "reverse seo" on a competitor's page. This is done by black hat techniques, such as "Google Bowling." Here's an old blog post on the technique that might help you understand it. http://optimized-promotion.com/seo/seo-classifications/black-hat-seo/google-bowling-reverse-seo.html
Hi MJ please tell me something about Google Bowling?
Is it Google Bombing or any thing else?

[mjtaylor]

Hi MJ please tell me something about Google Bowling?
Is it Google Bombing or any thing else?

Please read the referenced link.

[middleschooled]

So this is more of a blackhat SEO? Why would anybody want to do that? Aren't they just wasting time?

[SEOArbiter]

They may do it to hide negative publicity from showing up high in the ranks.

[safdar_ali]

This is technique of Black hat SEO. I think Google is too intelligent. Anyway, I am trying to find the solution of this issue.

[middleschooled]

So this is more of a reputation management rather than spamming competitor's sites to decrease their ranking?

[Alice_Ink]

Say a disgruntled customer voices their displeasure with your company/services on various websites. These sites may appear high in SERPs when people are searching for your company. Reverse SEO is the practice of trying to get these negative listings pushed down and hidden in SERPs so they don't reflect as badly on your company or service.

[Sandara]

is reverse SEO different from reverse engineering SEO?

[Social-Media]

Reverse SEO as described above is a form of online reputation management. There are two basic ways to do this:

1) Promote a bunch of other sites (maybe your linkedin profile, twitter profile, facebook profile, other web sites that are not negative towards you, etc.) so that they move up in the rankings and displace the negative SERP entry by outranking them or
2) Using blackhat techniques to cause the rankings of the negative SERP entry to be removed from the SERPs or to fall way down in the SERPs so that they are no longer a problem.


I'm really not sure if either is really worth worrying about. Most of the companies that perform the services described in #2 above are generally overseas, out of the reach of US law enforcement. One of the best sessions I've ever attended as an SEO was about this very topic - how to take down a competitors site using blackhat SEO. It's really amazing (not that I would do it) what the really competitive online web sites in areas like online gambling will do to win in the SERPs. Rather than outrank them, their competitors rankings to plummet. It's an eyeopener.

[webmaster.v21]

Reverse SEO has become one of the most effective strategies for minimizing the impact of bad publicity within the search engines’ organic listings. It is an online reputation management (ORM) tool of SEO consultants who manage Online Reputation Management. Too often, companies become targets for negative press online. Angered customers start blogs to take businesses to task for grievances suffered, real or imagined. Dishonest competitors will often go to great lengths to distribute fraudulent reports online. The problem is that these blogs, pages, and reports can begin ranking well in Google and Yahoo.

[Optic]

Although I have been told by very reputable sources that it is possible to kill a site with links from very, very bad neighborhoods, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. The better way is using profiles on authoritative websites and optimize them to rank for the terms you are finding the bad press on. The idea is to push the bad reviews far enough down in the SERPS that they don't really matter. You may need to build links to the profiles in order to get the job done, but this is pretty standard reputation management.

[simpy]

So can this this be used to push your competitors rankings down? Should this be done it sound like doing this would be very immoral ?

[weegillis]

Reverse SEO is not something you use against your competitors. It is not a weapon. It is something you use on your own site as a form of 'damage control.'

When bad reviews and negative publicity are surfacing on the web, one needs to counteract them by, a) making improvements on one's product and heavily publicizing it (eg. Toyota), b) making improvements on one's site and bolstering it with fresh natural links, c) spinning a lot of fresh, positive content on the web in the form of blogs, favorable reviews, etc.

This is loosely speaking, of course. The operative terms above are "reputation management" and "consultant." One would need a tremendous number of resources to first assess the degradation effect (how fast negative content is appearing high in the serps) and plan the reversing action. Not something that you or I can do on our own.


is reverse SEO different from reverse engineering SEO?

Significantly different, yes. Not that it would be anything easy (if one could do it at all), reverse engineering SEO would be taking a successful campaign and working backwards through the methodology to discover, what were the determining factors for success, and what were the problems encountered along the way and their solutions?

Reverse engineering takes a finished product and breaks it down into its simplest components, then studies the properties and relationships of the components. It looks at how a competitive product may have overcome an industry wide problem that has baffled others, or how a particular program succeeds at optimizing memory and accessing high level graphical services, and so on.

[williamc]

It can be used for either middleschool. But very few actually know HOW.

[moodeyit]

Reverse SEO is the process of removing (technically de-ranking) websites other than your own from the first pages of Google.

[williamc]

Reverse SEO can be done to get competitors website rank down or to get some page buried due to not showing correct results.

Really? And you would go about this how exactly? Be specific, I want to know if you actually know or are simply spouting gibberish :)

[regie0822]

I think spamming your competitor's website is also a way of reverse SEO. By the way, is "REVERSE SEO" is the same as "REVERSE ENGINEERING"?

[williamc]

By the way, is "REVERSE SEO" is the same as "REVERSE ENGINEERING"?

Pretty much, yes.

[regie0822]

Great! thanks for that William. I'm just a lil bit confused about it.

[eonic]

I guess the bigger a company is the more power they would have to counteract as they could apply their resources to it. Are there any companies that promote this or is it illegal?

[williamc]

A related post that gives a bit of detail on reverse seo from googles own mouth: http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/109013-Instead-of-topping-an-old-thread-to-embarass-some-peeps....-Competitor-Sabotage

[williamc]

Reverse SEO is the technique which helps to improve your own site's ranking by decreasing the competitor's ranking.To execute this one has to do huge spamming tof the competitor's site with lot of links to other sites.So Google thinks that this site is trying get ranked by huge spamming and so the site gets penalty and disappear from the search engines completely.

Nice copy and paste, shame the source was wrong. It only takes a few links to work if you know where to get them.