SEO Report: Black Hat Sabotage

If you see that your website’s links increase in number suddenly and that the increase does not correspond to your SEO and link-building efforts, then you need to be careful. Some webmasters are so happy about seeing a sudden hike in their links that they don’t stop to ask or even really care where those links came from – but if they are paid links bought by your competitor to point to your site, these additional free links can hurt your ranking very badly. You should make sure to check the links count for your website regularly and should pay close attention to a sudden drop of links as well as for sudden jump in the number of links. Both should be a matter of concern to any webmaster who is concerned about his or her online presence and online reputation.

Google bowling is an extremely unethical practice and you must of course stay away from all such methods. You should use straightforward and authorized methods to outdo your competitors and watch out in case they are not so honorable and resort to back stabbing. If it comes about that you are indeed a victim of Google bowling, you must make sure to trace the sources of those free links that caused you the trouble. Report them quickly to Google so they know you are not the one causing the buying of links, and contact the sites from which the links came and tell them you did not authorize the links and request that they be removed or no-followed.