Possibilities of Negative Co-Citation and/or Co-Occurrence?
-
Knowing how co-citation and co-occurrence function, or how we speculate that they function, it seems there could be several ways that competitors could associate negative words and phrases with sites they compete with. This could also be disastrous for reputation management. Someone could associate negative terms about a person or business without linking to them and it could do harm.
Does this make sense? Is this possible or are there safe-checks in place?
-
Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for the really fun question (note: negative SEO isn't fun, but trying to figure it the algorithm is
Couple of reasons why I think this would be difficult:
1. We have very limited working knowledge of both co-citation and co-occurance. What we do know at this point is little more than theory. So working them into an actionable strategy for positive rankings would be hard enough I imagine, let alone negative SEO.
2. The signals produced by these measurements are likely to be weaker than traditional link signals, thus reducing the incentive to use them.
3. One of the reasons we believe search engines may use co-citation and co-occurance is that they are harder to game (especially when combined with authority and trust metrics) so it follows that they would also be harder to game in the negative.
That said, it's so new I barely know what I'm talking about. Really interesting area
-
Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Negative SEO yes/no?
We receive links from fake websites, these website are copy's from real websites that link to us, but sometimes the links are changes, as for example one link is called 'tank weapon with hitler', we are a insurance comparison website (a bit of topic). The real websites that link to us are copied and placed on .ga .tk etc domains: For example: wahlrsinnsa.ga, loungihngsa.ga, pajapritosa.cf, rgeitsportsa.cf, sospesvoasa.tk I received spam links on other domains with comments spam etc, this doesnt really work, but in this case we really suffer in our rankings (from position 1 to 5 etc). Not sure if this is negative SEO and if this is really the reason we lost some rankings, but it's a bit of a coincidence the domains come in google webmaster in the same period we suffer a downgrade in our rankings. My question: Is this negative SEO, or is it something automatic. And do I need to disavow the links/domains? The real versions of the websites (on other domains with .nl) give the website autority.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | remkoallertz0 -
It's possible a bounce-rate attack manipulate SEO?
My site has been visited by unusual users with one second session times. This leaves my analytics data confused.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CompraBit0 -
Hit by negative SEO
I think my site got hit by a negative SEO campaign. We got nailed by the latest Google update and our traffic dropped significantly. We don't buy links, ask for links, do link exchanges, etc. Since the last update was all about spammy backlinks, I downloaded backlinks from Google Webmaster Tools just to see if there was any info in there. There are tons, hundreds, thousands of backlinks from spammy sites to us. Sites that are spammy as heck and sell backlinks on the footer. I can only assume someone went after us with a negative SEO campaign. We're the #3 site in a hot market. Is the only way to combat this to disavow all those spammy backlinks with the Google disavow tool? We also have a manual penalty on our site as well. I've asked for a reconsideration request and have heard nothing. Please advise.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Search Results Showing Additional info/Links
Did I miss something? I was looking at search result listings this morning and noticed that Walmart has additional information at the bottom of their (non-paid (I think)) search results. Please see the attached image and you'll notice links to "Item Description - Product Warranty and Service - Specifications - Gifting Plans" How are they doing this? I just noticed the same on one of our competitors listings so It's not just Walmart and the links are item specific. (I have update the image) Z0yqKtO.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BWallacejr1 -
competitor sites link to a considerable amount of irrelevant sites/nonsense sites that seem to score high with regard to domain authority
According to my recent SEOmoz links analysis, my competitor sites link to a considerable amount of irrelevant sites/nonsense sites that seem to score high with regard to domain authority... e.g. wedding site linking to a transportation attorney's website. Aother competitor site has an overall of 2 million links, most of which are seemingly questionable index sites or forums to which registration is unattainable. I recently created a 301 redirect, and my external links have yet to be updated to my new domain name in SEOmoz. Yet, by comparing my previous domain authority rank with those of the said competitor sites, the “delta” is relatively marginal. The SEOmoz rank is 21 whereas the SEOmoz ranks of two competitor sites 30 and 33 respectively. The problem is, however, is to secure a good SERP for the most relevant terms with Google… My Google pagerank was “3” prior to the 301 redirect. I worked quite intensively so as to receive a pagerank only to discover that it had no affect at all on the SERP. Therefore, I took a calculated risk in changing to a domain name that translates from non-latin characters, as the site age is marginal, and my educated guess is that the PR should rebound within 4 weeks, however, I would like to know as to whether there is a way to transfer the pagerank to the new domain… Does anyone have any insight as to how to go about and handling this issue?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eranariel0 -
Link Building on Blog Posts w/ Ads & Mostly Pictures
I found a group of similar websites that offer anchor text links with good to great domain and page authority (30 to 75), but I'm not sure how "safe" they are. Most of their posts are compilations of images/logos and there are a lot of ads on the page. Would links from sites like TutorialChip.com help or would Google discount them because of the nature of the site? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pbhatt0 -
EXPERT CHALLENGE: What link building strategies do YOU think will work after the latest 3/29/2012 Google algorithm change?
FOR ALL SEO THOUGHT LEADERS...What link building strategies do YOU think will work after the latest 3/29/2012 Google algorithm change? NOTE: My hope is that the responses left on this thread will ultimately benefit all members of the community and give recognition to the true thought leaders within the SEO space. That being said, my challenge is a 2 part question: With the 80/20 rule in mind, and in light of recent algorithm changes, what would YOU focus most of your SEO budget on if you had to choose? Let's assume you're in a competitive market (ie #1-5 on page 1 has competitors with 20,000+ backlinks - all ranging from AC Rank 7 to 1). How would you split your total monthly SEO budget as a general rule? Ex) 60% link building / 10% onsite SEO / 10% Social Media / 20% content creation? I realize there are many "it depends" factors but please humor us anyways. Link building appears to have become harder and harder as google releases more and more algorithm changes. For link building, the only true white hat way of proactively generating links (that I know of) is creating high quality content that adds value to customers (ie infographics, videos, etc.), guest blogging, and Press Releases. The con to these tactics is that you are waiting for others to find and pick up your content which can take a VERY long time, so ROI is difficult to measure and justify to clients or C-level management. That being said, how are YOU allocating your link building budget? Are all of these proactive link building tactics a waste of time now? I've heard it couldn't hurt to still do some of these, but what are your thoughts and what is / isn't working for you? Here they are: A. Using spun articles edited by US based writers for guest blog content B. 301 Redirects C. Social bookmarking D. Signature links from Blog commenting E. Directory submissions F. Video Submissions G. Article Directory submissions H. Press release directory submissions I. Forum Profile Submissions J. Forum signature links K. RSS Feed submissions L. Link wheels M. Building links (using scrapebox, senukex, etc.) to pages linked to your money site N. Links from privately owned networks (I spoke to an SEO company that claims to have over 4000 unique domains which he uses to boost rankings for his clients) O. Buying Contextual Text Links All Expert opinions are welcomed and appreciated 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seoeric2 -
Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?
I have been emailed asking if I sell links on one of my sites. The person wants to link out to slotsofvegas[dot]com or similar. Should I be concerned about linking out to this and does it reduce the link value to any of the other sites that the site links out to? Thanks, Mark
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Markus1110