Have you been hit by negative SEO?

[xgoals]

I once had an attack of negative seo, but disavowing all the links was sufficient enough in my case. I didn't have any other bad effects or consequential damages..

[wonderpunter]

I once had an attack of negative seo, but disavowing all the links was sufficient enough in my case. I didn't have any other bad effects or consequential damages..

Never seen a positive or negative difference using disavow

[eenzoo]

I see a ton of those sh*** every week. Stopped disavowing hundreds of links pointed to different domains ... I don't see a difference. Google should smart enough.

[Tommy_odds]

Not exactly a penalty. Imagine this scenario: a guy is doing laps and is a slow runner. That's your bad content. For a while, he's the only runner around and is always first. After a while ten other runners join, who are faster. Though he is not penalized for his slow running, he's now 11th.

With the newest Passage update, I imagine a lot of super long articles that were a wall of text and had poor readability can now rank, because google highlights the portion someone was looking for.

Well said. The only thing is always to understand what we mean for poor readability. It is subjective, but we need the Google point of view, nothing else matters.

[Tommy_odds]

Own observation from our own sites rankings.

Blogger content doesn't have to be great and or human readable to help build your site's rankings.
I assume better content is more readable, clickable, searchable and mostly sharable.

Emphasis should be on formatting and write uniquely as possible.
Length is debatable. 500+ words should suffice each post
Quality builds efficacy. Quality Content that ensures it's an asset for your business and helps your audience

Page speed optimizer. Instant boost.

Quality backlinks and guest posts should improve rankings.
Keep in mind new sites would be a waste and only fully optimized sites should buy links.

Increasing traffic volume - improved rankings.
Increase keywords - improve rankings

Upgraded Server and WP core and design only UI and UX improvements no change in rankings.

SEO tweaks that are less important:
Spending time fixing all the site errors if not critical errors could be a waste of time.

I did a SEMrush audit and went through all the fixes.
Little to no impact on site performance or rankings.

I agree 100% on server/WP core design: useless. There are websites 10+ years old with ugly design that still rank perfectly good. I assume authority and reputation through the years has a high impact on Google's algorithm, much more than SEO tweaks. Once again, understanding how much they weigh or consider 'readability' in their calculations is critical today.

[casimusume]

So far, there has been no damage from negative keywords, but casino-related keywords in Japanese tend to be locked.

[Springbok]

I see a ton of those sh*** every week. Stopped disavowing hundreds of links pointed to different domains ... I don't see a difference. Google should smart enough.

I personally agree with this. Negative SEO has become less of an effect as of late imo. Though I still think it's smart to keep watching it - particularly for people stealing content.

[JanKwiatkowski]

I have never been hit by negative seo by my friend was ... it was pretty bad

[bahissiteleriweb]

just refuse and don't worry too much.