Negative SEO involves competitors or bad actors building spammy backlinks to your site to hurt your rankings. It is rare for cosmetic practices but real in highly competitive markets. The best protection is monitoring your backlink profile monthly for unusual link acquisition patterns and submitting a disavow file to Google when clearly spammy links appear.
Negative SEO is more common in highly competitive markets with high CPLs — where the financial incentive to suppress a competitor is significant. Cosmetic practices in major metros with competitive procedure keywords are more likely to encounter it than practices in smaller markets. Most cosmetic practices will never experience it, but awareness of the risk and a monitoring system in place is prudent.
Monitor your backlink profile monthly using Ahrefs, Google Search Console, or Semrush. Look for sudden spikes in referring domains, links from clearly irrelevant or spam sites, and anchor text that appears manipulative. If you identify a pattern of suspicious links, compile them into a disavow file and submit it through Google Search Console. Google typically discounts toxic links without a disavow, but submitting the file makes your intent explicit.
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