Local SEO is the only thing between you running a successful business and failing horrendously, if you aren’t able to properly implement an SEO protocol than you’re going to get burnt one way or another. Another thing you need to think about is the security of your website, if it isn’t secure enough than you’re going to get taken advantage of. Tons of hackers out there have techniques that allow them to steal traffics from sites, think of it as “traffic jacking” if you will. Whenever you build up a site that’s doing well organically it’s going to get targeted, and then the hackers are going to come out of the shadows and try to benefit from the things you’ve accomplished. It’s important to understand how these people go about doing these things in order to protect yourself, and if you haven’t got enough time to do that you should at least know how to protect yourself from SEO spam. SEO spam is one of those things people don’t see coming, and when it finally hits them they’re clueless as to what they need to do. Whenever somebody spams the links to your sites (your sitelinks) with search terms and types of traffic that have nothing to do with your niche.
This gets them tons of commission money if they’re dealing with an IBM (impression based marketing) group, and it can make them a ton of bank if you’re not careful. It’s happened with plenty of other niches like gambling and adult pages, and it’s only a matter of time before it starts happening to simple SEO sites.
Whenever a hacker takes advantage of your site they usually leave traces, most of the time they have search terms that are less than desirable popping up in your websites information (things like ‘V i a g r a’ or erectile dysfunction pills are perfect examples). This affects your local SEO because some search engines might index your website for these wrong terms instead of the ones you need them to actually index, and as a result all of your hard work is now helping a random hacker profit from the internet. SEO spam is a real problem and you need to keep an eye out for it, there are plenty of web applications out there you can make use of to make sure that you’re completely protected from these shady hackers. If you aren’t going to protect yourself than it’s only a matter of time before those characters get their hands on your website, and as soon as that happens it’s going to be rather hard to come back from. They’re going to hit your site with so many spam links that you’ll wonder how they found the time, and on top of that they’ll skim most (if not all of your traffic) off of the top and push those people to their own offers. It’s very shady, but that’s the way the internet works and all you can do is prepare for it.
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