SEO is a neutral tool. It can be good or bad, depending on how you use it. On one hand, SEO is important for building your site visibility and credibility. It is a must-have for getting customers, making a profit and growing your business today. Countless brands, from start-ups to big-name corporations, cannot survive without the help of SEO for the years to come.

On the other hand, SEO can also be used to murder a brand – your brand. It can damage your reputation, eliminate your years of hard optimization work and cause your site to lose its rankings and authority, and even be penalized by Google. Negative SEO can equate to significant profit loss and business ruin if not addressed in an effective and timely manner.

Negative SEO can be avoided and prevented, fortunately. According to Prescott SEO experts, some of the proven anti-negative SEO methods include:

Set up email alerts from Google Webmaster Tools. Always be in the know about what’s happening on your site. Webmaster email alerts can inform you of various issues such as non- indexed pages, malware attacks, connectivity reports, and whether Google has slapped your site with a penalty.

Diligently audit your site links. Establish a system and schedule that will let you regularly monitor your website backlinks. This audit should include hunting for harmful, unnatural links or manipulative links that a competitor may have set up to ruin your site rankings. It should also consist of identifying your good-quality backlinks so you can make it a point to protect them. Backlinks monitoring can be done manually through platforms such as Google Webmaster Tools and Ahrefs, or via automated services.

Invest in site security. To prevent malware and hacking attacks, invest in the best security system and solutions for your website. Also, routinely create backups of your database and other important files.

Be vigilant against duplicate content. Content duplication is one of the easiest ways a bitter competitor can do to harm your SEO ranking. It can be done even without special tools or skills (Copy-paste, anyone?). If Google detects many cases of your content being duplicated, then you most probably will be up for a penalty in the near future. Tools such as Copyscape help you sniff out pages that contain copies of your original content.

Protect yourself against yourself. In many cases, the biggest negative SEO source is the website owners themselves. They – or one of their staff – can unwittingly implement SEO techniques that have already been deemed outdated, irrelevant or unacceptable by Google. Knowledge of up-to- date, working SEO rules is therefore crucial for building a good-quality website. As always, it’s best to invest in the services of a trusted professional rather than leave things to chance and guesswork.