The Saboteurs Of Search

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If your online business, like thousands of others on the Web, relies on Google searches for traffic, then Brendon Scott is a good person to have on your side.

For a price, he can boost a site to the top of Google (nasdaq:GOOG -news -people)search results for lucrative search terms, attracting crowds ofcustomers. And better to have Scott working for you than for yourcompetitors. Because occasionally, Scott says, he takes a less friendlyapproach: reducing a competing site's visibility to searchers--ormaking it seem to disappear from search results altogether.

Scottoffers what he and some other search marketers call "negative searchengine optimization" or "negative SEO," a harmless-sounding term thatamounts to sabotaging a Web site's ranking in search engine results.Sometimes negative SEO is performed for reputation management, tweakingonline content so that it floats to the top of Google or Yahoo!(nasdaq:YHOO -news -people)results, thereby pushing a critic's negative comments to a lowerranking. But in rare cases, Scott says, negative SEO involves morenefarious means, convincing Google or Yahoo!'s search algorithms tobury a competitor's site deep within search results, where its trafficpractically evaporates.

In Pictures: 7 Ways Your Site Can Be Sabotaged

"I understand the rules of search," Scott says. "And once youunderstand the rules, you can use them not just constructively, butalso destructively."

Those rules, at least for major searchengines like Google and Yahoo!, are based largely on the number oflinks from other pages to a given site: The more links, the higher thatsite ranks in Google and Yahoo! results. But this system of link-basedranking invites cheating. Search engine optimizers can use softwarethat generates thousands of links to their site, pushing its rankingartificially high. In response, Google and Yahoo!'s search algorithmsnow automatically punish sites that game their algorithms by pushingthe offending pages deep into the unseen layers of search results. (See"Condemned to Google Hell.")

Thatfiltering strategy keeps search results relevant to users despite themeddling of Web spammers. But Scott and other search marketers say italso makes possible a powerful form of negative SEO. Search marketersclaim they can frame certain competitors as cheaters by postingthousands of links around the Web, making a competing site look likeit's engaging in "link spamming," a tactic that draws the disfavor ofmajor search engines. In SEO circles, this technique of setting up acompetitor to be punished for link spamming is sometimes called "Googlebowling."

"If a new site gains half a million links over thecourse of a weekend, it looks suspect from Google's point of view,"Scott says. "So you make someone look naughty, and then get themcaught."

Scott says that he's used Google bowling in theservice of clients with travel Web sites and mobile phone sites, but hetries to avoid using the tactic frequently. It tests his ethicallimits, he says, and its beneficial competitive effects don't usuallylast long. Google bowling, he says, occurs most often in alreadydisreputable parts of the Web that hawk porn and pharmaceuticals.

WhenScott has stooped to direct sabotage, he says he's signed nondisclosureagreements that prevent him from revealing details of the deal. Suchsecrecy means that claims of using Google bowling are difficult toverify. Jason Duke, another practitioner of negative SEO based inLondon, is similarly tight-lipped about his deals, as well as thespecific methods he uses for reducing a site's ranking in searchresults. "We don't talk loudly about our clients," he says. "Especiallythe ones we do morally questionable things for."

Google andYahoo! offer even fewer clues about the extent of negative SEOpractices, leaving them a subject of speculation and doubt. Some searchmarketers question whether tactics like Google bowling even exist.Google's Webmaster Central site, designed to answer search marketers'queries, says merely, "There's almost nothing a competitor can do toharm your ranking or have your site removed from our index." But Duke,and many search marketers, take that "almost" as a concession fromGoogle that negative SEO does occur.

Matt Cutts, a seniorsoftware engineer for Google, says that piling links onto acompetitor's site to reduce its search rank isn't impossible, but it'sextremely difficult. "We try to be mindful of when a technique can beabused and make our algorithm robust against it," he says. "I won't goout on a limb and say it's impossible. But Google bowling is much moreinviting as an idea than it is in practice."

Cutts also pointsout that any potential for sabotage exists across all search engines."It really should be called 'search engine bowling,' " he says.

Dukesays that Google bowling--or search engine bowling, as the case maybe--does work, and that he's "advised businesses both on undertaking itand recovering from it." He adds that one of his own sites, a financialservices business, was hit with the tactic and lost an estimated 5million unique visitors over the course of 10 days.

Neither Scottor Duke will say just how much they receive for their sabotageservices, though Duke says his base rate is around 3,000 pounds (about$6,000) a day, with extra charges for especially labor-intensive jobs.He cites one assignment, reducing the search engine rankings of afilm's negative reviews, which paid in the tens of thousands of pounds.

Aless cryptic and less controversial purveyor of negative SEO isReputationDefender, a company based in Louisville, Ky.ReputationDefender, which charges $10,000 per assignment for its SEOservices and claims more than 25 clients, offers to hide unflatteringcomments about individuals or businesses on the Web by using what itsfounder, Michael Fertik, calls "Google Insulation." The company createspositive content about its clients and floats it to the top of Googleor Yahoo! results, so that negative content is pushed to subsequentpages, where it's less visible. (See "Google-Proof PR?")

Dukesays he also performs this kind of less objectionable negative SEO whenit suits his clients' needs. But he argues that it's a slippery slopefrom this more accepted tactic to less polite methods of search-ranksabotage.

"SEO can always be seen as good or bad, depending onwhich side of the fence you're sitting on," he says. "That's thereality of search. For every winner, there's also a loser."

In Pictures: 7 Ways Your Site Can Be Sabotaged