What Is SEO Spam and Can You Avoid It?

Achieving a high rank on search results pages is a crucial aspect of online marketing success. In the event your search rank decreases, it can impact visibility and cause you to lose customers to competitors.

Search rank can change for lots of reasons, including the presence of SEO spam on your website. Here are some key facts to consider about this cyber threat, as well as ways to avoid its problematic effects.

Understanding SEO Spam

Having a high rank on search results pages means that more people will be exposed to your website and the content it contains. However, organically increasing your search rank takes time, which is the basis of search engine optimization. Consider that legitimate SEO can take months or even years to boost the rank of a website.

SEO spam is an underhanded scheme that uses established websites to gain a greater audience. In this case, a hacker will infiltrate a website and will place links and content throughout in an effort to get more eyes on their websites. As a result, the website housing the spam can experience a decreased search rank, while the hacker gains a wider audience. SEO spam can appear in many forms, including:

• Links
• Ads
• Posts
• Web pages
• Keywords

Fortunately, there are ways to prevent hackers from breaching your site and decreasing your search rank.

What You Can Do About SEO Spam

Robust website security protocols are the best way to prevent SEO spam from becoming an issue. The harder it is for hackers to access your site, the lower the risk that spam will impact your rank on search results pages. Additionally, regularly updating website security processes ensures that you’re protected from emerging threats.

Continuous monitoring of your site is also key, as monitoring can identify changes in your search rank. It’s true that search rank can decrease for other, legitimate reasons, but any sudden, unexplained changes should be evaluated to determine the root cause.

Having a dependable online marketing agency in your corner can help avoid common SEO pitfalls. Because our SEO services are backed by decades of experience and knowledge, you can rest easy knowing that our team at SonicSEO.com has you covered.