4 ways to beat the competitor out of the search

“I’m annoyed by the X site on the first page. Not only that he started later than me, so he is still all the time higher than me in the results. Take it away, I pay money! ”

I am sure that any SEO agency will get this task in due course. Is it possible to remove a competing site? The answer is you can. Take the article not for as a guide to action, but as information to protect against such options. So, the main ways to “twist” the site:

1. Creating an affiliate with a copy of the content.

What is an affiliate? To protect against clogging, the search engines apply a filter that removes sites from one owner. Thus, you can find out the main parameters of a competing site and create a duplicate that most repeats the original. On the same hosting, on the same CMS, with a very similar domain (a difference in one letter).

Spurs the site and deploy it on a hosting is not long and inexpensive. And unfortunately, it really works. There were attempts even with the largest Ukrainian sites. In this case, even if the affiliate filter does not work, there is a high probability of a drop in issuance due to multiple copies of the content. If you do not add pages to the index immediately after placement, and the attacker does this, then the source will be considered it, and you, respectively, for the “theft” of content is pessimistic.

As an option – a network of blogs is bought, which are quickly indexed by search engines, and all your content is “fed” there. Especially cynical even after a theft, create a DMCA complaint, with the reason that the content was stolen by you, in order for your site to be excluded from the search.

How to protect from this? If you find a copy of the complaint immediately to the hoster of the “enemy” clone, the domain registrar and the complaint of theft in Google and Yandex. In most cases this will work. Also, take care of fast indexing of content. Previously, you could install rel = author, but unfortunately, Google officially indicated that it no longer supports authorship in Google+.

2. Hacking the site

There are a lot of options, but the most obvious ones are:

• The most insidious is the placement in the pages of scripts (viruses) with a redirect to another site. And they are made with a random timer or special conditions of operation (for example, only with a mobile version, or only in the Internet Explorer browser). That is, when you visit the site you do not see anything suspicious, and when visitors – then they are transferred to another site that does not belong to you. Here goes immediately and the theft of your traffic, and the transfer of weight to another page, as a consequence of the strongest loss of positions in the search. Detected after a long time, when the damage is already significant and is complicated by the fact that without special knowledge in web programming it is almost impossible to remove it.
• Hosting .htaccess or robots.txt with instructions that prohibit the indexing of the site. The site is removed from the search entirely or most important pages.
• Interception of rights to the site in the webmasters’ panel and forced removal from the index of the entire site or the most important pages.

How to protect from this? Constantly update the “engine” of the site. Keep all passwords safe. When granting access to FTP or hosting (working with designers, optimizers, freelancers) to open access only for their IP address grid. After the end of the work – change all the passwords. Keep the main access keys at home. Only on yourself register the domain and hosting. It is tempting not to delve into these details and entrust this to the creator of the site “register me a hosting and domain”, but this is your site, your business. Therefore, take these details seriously.

3. The reference explosion.

Here, the algorithm for dealing with purchased links from search engines works. As is known algorithm Penguin pessimizes sites which are promoted by means of reference exchanges. Therefore, the purchase of a lot of the same type of anchor links from sites “garbage” with an extremely low rating and a high rate of zapamlenosti can lead to a ban site for which links are purchased.

How to protect from this? Constantly check the growth rates of the reference mass and analyze its structure. When a lot of “black” links appear, reject them through the tool for rejecting backlinks without waiting for the search console to display an unnatural link to your site.

4. DDOS attack

Not the cheapest way, but it’s quite self-working. The site generates a lot of garbage requests that cause denial of service, the site is unavailable for a long time, and the search bot, not detecting the site at the address, throws it out of the index.

How to protect from this? Use hosting with protection against DDOS attacks, or use external security services, for example, such as Cloudflare.

Conclusion: all these methods are dirty, the most that neither is black. We would recommend never seriously considering none of them. We are personally convinced that the only correct and correct way to get around the competitor is to do everything better: the site itself, its optimization, filling, attitude to sales and so on. Then, with the passage of time, you will necessarily be higher in the results.