Case Study: CBD Oil Negative SEO Defense

In March of 2019, the unthinkable happened to CBD Oil manufacturer, NuLeaf Naturals. Their one dominant rankings and search engine traffic sunk. In a matter of days, nearly 100,000/mo visitors were suddenly non-existent.

At one time, NuLeaf Naturals ranked #1 in Google for various terms like Buy CBD Oil, Pure CBD Oil, and others. Within days, those once top rankings fell deep into the Google abyss. But why?

Behind the scenes, a suspected competitor has been quietly executing an aggressive negative SEO attack against NuLeafNaturals.com. The attack was designed to simulate a poorly executed SEO campaign as well as flood anchors to remove value through anchor saturation. While Google claims negative SEO attacks are ineffective, and can potentially even help the targeted website, our data and test show the ladder.

In a matter of months, tens of thousands of links were pointed to NuLeaf for sexually related terms, competitors’ name, and even their digital marketing agency name.

Altitude Agency, our sister agency has crazy amounts of experience handling negative SEO attacks, and it’s a good thing. They knew exactly what to do to start the recovery which included first, researching and identifying the spammy links.

From the initial tank (March 2019) it took nearly 7 months for the website to start its recovery. Inbetween various updates, the site grew and also fell. The Altitude team had to work through the on-going negative SEO attack (which is happening still as we speak) as well as continue to manage in-house SEO efforts. In May, nearly 14 months later the site recovery has rebounded around 70%.

Because the attacks are still happening, the proactive negative SEO recovery has to work in tandem with on-going in-house SEO efforts which has proven successful. This is a prime example of why it’s critical to have ana agency with an in-depth understanding of how to deal with Negative SEO.