There's a new scam making its way around the web, and you need to make sure you're not hit with this one.
People are getting emails that are demanding $1,500, or the extortionists will start a campaign of negative SEO:
Negative SEO is a technique where someone will point thousands of poor quality backlinks at your website, with the goal of hurting your search ranking. Google uses backlinks to your site when determining where to rank your chiropractic site in the search results. Poor quality or paid links can seriously damage your ranking.
We have not heard from any of our clients regarding this extortion scheme, but if you get one of these, here's what you need to do:
First, don't pay the extortionists! There are ways that you can remove the risk to your website from negative SEO.
Second, get an accurate, baseline backlink profile. We provide that for our SEO clients with VIP Chiropractic Marketing Service, and your marketing firm should be providing that for you on a regular basis. With a baseline profile, you'll be able to see what current backlinks you have and detect new, spammy links when they appear.
Third, if you detect new, poor quality links, file a link disavowal notice through Google Webmaster Tools. This tells Google that you don't want the link to be associated with your site.
Please let us know if you've received one of these emails. If you need some help with your chiropractic marketing strategy, give us a call or contact us here.
