San Fransisco, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 05/03/2012 --Google never seems far from the news these days with their constant Panda updates affecting millions of sites. One of the most exciting stories has recently gone viral, and it started at the popular internet marketing forum, Traffic Planet.
It has long been assumed that Google would “protect” businesses and services providers if a competitor attempted to hurt their search engine rankings. Millions of businesses rely on Google for their website traffic, which ultimately leads to sales. In short, the financial livelihood of countless small and large businesses relies very heavily on the traffic that comes from high rankings on Google.
Traffic Planet recently broke a story, based on several case studies by members of the forum, which has shocked the search engine optimization industry. These Traffic Planet members have demonstrated that destroying a competitor’s ranking and doing so very quickly is not only possible but relatively easy. These tactics belong to a branch of search engine optimization called ‘Negative SEO’ and a number of SEO heavyweights have rushed to join the discussion on Traffic Planet.
One of the backlinks case studies targeted a site owned by Dan Thies, a well known SEO professional, and within a month, this Negative SEO campaign yielded results, reducing the Google rankings for three of his keywords. One keyword dropped over a thousand spots.
The same Traffic Planet member later ran a case study on another site with similarly shocking results, dropping the site from one to thirteen on Google for one keyword.
These cutting-edge case studies have been seized upon by a number of SEO’s biggest names, with Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, signing up to debate the issue on Traffic Planet. Rand then followed up with a blog post and video of his own on the Negative SEO story that Traffic Planet broke.
Negative SEO has huge implications for Google and the SEO industry at large. After the publicity surrounding the case studies on Traffic Planet, a rise in the number of businesses offering Negative SEO has already been detected.
The SEO landscape will be changed forever if the Negative SEO possibilities highlighted at Traffic Planet remain possible. Businesses could be investing in harming competitors rather than promoting their business and it is Google’s latest algorithmic changes that appear to be the culprit.
Traffic Planet’s founder and SEO expert Terry Kyle was very clear that he was completely against the Negative SEO practice, but understood the important role his forum plays in identifying key issues that affect not only his forum members’ business but also the wider online community.
Businesses owners are raging against Google on hundreds of blogs and forums about the fact that Negative SEO is even possible. However, Terry Kyle points out Negative SE may work to Google’s advantage:
“As has also been pointed out previously in this thread, Google is basically an advertising company, not a search company, search just happens to be their delivery platform.
“In that sense, it actually serves Google to tacitly promote Negative SEO and continue to make SEO more difficult, more volatile and more unpredictable. Whether they get hit with massive lawsuits in allowing/promoting Negative SEO as a result, remains to be seen.”
There is no doubt the outrage over Negative SEO is far from over and Terry Kyle believes Traffic Planet will continue to be at the forefront of SEO and other Internet Marketing related developments.
Terry Kyle comments, “Ultimately the point of a place like Traffic Planet is to share, encourage, debate, advise, inspire and to help smaller online businesses realize their aspirations of financial freedom and greater lifestyle choices.”
About Traffic Planet
Traffic Planet is the Web's premier online venue for advanced tactical discussions about search engine optimization, monetization and conversions (converting visitors to a website into buyers and email subscribers). All Traffic Planet tactical discussions are completely free to read and participate in and all levels of internet marketing skill are welcome. For more information, visit: http://trafficplanet.com/
