3. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Other people’s malicious activities can get
your site in trouble
May 2012, http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?
hl=en&answer=34449
But so can your own actions (or lack of
action)!
“There's almost nothing a
competitor can do to harm
your ranking“
“Google works hard to prevent
other webmasters from being able
to harm your ranking”
4. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
SEO security audits cover a wider spectrum of
issues than just links
Some sites’ problems have little to nothing to
do with links and can be caused by onsite
issues
Site architecture causing problems is often
overlooked
But link audits are an integral part of SEO
security audits
6. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Indexable (empty) search results
Use of insecure plugins
Site structure causing duplicate onsite
content
Bad redirects
Incorrect or absent robots.txt
Etc.
7. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Bingo – your site is now about Viagra!
(Example typical for Wordpress but many other platforms have similar issues)
9. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Indexable search results
http://www.domain.com/search/buy+viagra
http://www.domain.com/?s=buy+viagra
◦ Result: duplicate content + site can be indexed for
any sketchy stuff
10. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Add this to your Wordpress site’s robots.txt:
◦ Disallow: /search/
◦ Disallow: /*?s=
13. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Sites get hacked
According to Stop Badware, the three most
common types of badware affecting sites are:
◦ Malicious scripts
◦ .htaccess redirects
◦ Hidden iframes
15. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
My post on how to get rid of malware on a site: http://www.irishwonder.com/blog/
2012/07/20/site-infected-by-malware-heres-what-you-should-do/
22. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
A weak link profile makes negative SEO
against a site much easier
Are you sticking to one type of links?
How consistent is your link building?
28. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Do your links suddenly disappear?
Do you get more links all of sudden?
Do you get spammier links than usual?
Do you get unusual anchor texts?
(Faster: do you get traffic for unusual
keywords?)
30. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
No
But you can close all the easily exploitable
holes
And then a negative SEO campaign becomes
more difficult than they are willing to spend
the effort on
31. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
Onsite checks:
◦ Duplicate content
◦ Indexable search results
◦ Incorrect or absent robots.txt
◦ Insecure plugins
◦ Already existing malware
Offsite checks:
◦ Bad neighbourhood on the server
◦ Weak link profile
◦ Obvious paid links
◦ Overuse of anchor texts
◦ Obvious network setup
32. @irishwonder SMX London 2013@irishwonder
• info@irishwonder.com
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• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/irishwonder
Who am I:
• Independent SEO consultant at
irishwonder.com
• CMO of ContentMango.com
• Chief SEO Scientist at SearchWorks.eu
