Sabotage of SEO drops

[ELIFE-MZ]

We were discussing this with couple of big SEO dropped domain buyers. It appears that some person/entity is deliberately creating adult spam links apparently during 90-95th day. I cannot understand the logic here. The domain hasn't dropped so why do that?

Perhaps the perpetrator then removes the links if they end up catching the domain name but that would give the game away.

Mind boggles.

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Spotted this the other day on a clean drop with 20 penis enlargement backlinks. Fun times.

 

[keano]

Noticed this recently as well. I just assumed it was a person/group trying to thin out the prospective field of catchers of specific domains by creating a few prominent dodgy links. Would probably be enough to put off some risk averse folks from chasing the domain/s.

 

[seemly]

I've never really subscribed to the thought process of negative SEO through toxic backlinks, even when it first came around many years ago. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Many people are more knowledgeable in this field than I am, but from a logical mindset, it doesn't ring true.

If your site gets "hacked" and generates many 100's and 1,000's of dynamically generated pages with links to penis enlargement, viagra, gambling, or instant loan websites, I can see how that would dramatically and negatively impact your site.

I can understand Google (and other search engines) using links as a (positive) quality rating metric of a website. I know Google aren't renowned for making sensible decisions sometimes, but since around 2012, with the Penguin update, when negative SEO was deemed a thing (publicly), it didn't even make sense to me then, and certainly not in 2024.

Have any of you experienced the impact of negative SEO, which can be directly attributed to an influx of toxic links?

 

[dee]

So surely the person doing this can then get rid of the links very quickly if the catch is won ? Wouldnt it be pretty easy to suss out who's doing it ?

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Probabaly someone butt hurt that they aren't catching.

 

[baldidiot]

Weirdly the logic does kind of make sense. Not something I'd do myself, but I can understand what they're thinking.

If people are just checking domains quickly, then seeing hundreds of viagra type links might make the person looking at it think that the links are all garbage. Ie: the decent links that the domain has are being disguised or diluted by the shitty ones.

So it may not be that it's there to hurt the domain to be removed if they catch it, more that it's there to make the quality of links look worse than it is. Tbh might not even just be for catching, same thing could put off bidders in an auction.