I don't think many people really believe that "Nothing that a competitor can do can harm you" [which I think is what you meant to say!].

The myth is that (a) it's easy and (b) it happens all the time - It's not easy to hurt another's web site, but it is possible.

I don't see that the SEs would penalise your site for a spam site that redirects to yours, however. Unless you had links or other association with that site. Certainly reciprocal links can be risky, precisely because you can get yourself into a bad neighborhood.

But I suspect Naylor refers to more devious methods.

There's plenty of things but we don't explicitly list 'em all out for people to try out.

Fascinating. You guys have piqued my interest :) Shouldn't we discuss this so we know how to protect ourselves? I mean, bad guys already know these ploys... us discussing them won't change that but it will build some awareness around it.

Sure, and, er, help other bad guys who didn't already know ...

There's plenty of fixes for various things listed all over this forum - posted when someone identified their site was suffering from "something", but the "something" isn't laid out in full glory for other people to recreate and cause yet more damage.

On one of the black hat forums, a member laid out in detail what could be done to hurt a competitor's site. I suspect it would work, but it would take a lot of time. More time than it would take to improve one's own site to get better rankings.

I suspect it would work, but it would take a lot of time. More time than it would take to improve one's own site to get better rankings.

Yeah, if you're an independant. If however you are a major corporation, and some upstart start-up has taken your #1 spot, do you
a) Redesign your corporate website, getting every phase signed off in triplicate
b) Wreck the poor start-up's rankings.

Coming to the attention of big-gun companies with in-house SEO means you better be able to defend your rankings, and recognise when your site is not ranking as well as it should (honesty and analytics are key here).

It's a useful distinction; for most of us, it would not be an easy option. It could be a lot of time and effort with no guaranteed result - and could even backfire badly.

I agree that for corporations who want a quick fix, it could be tempting. But even for them, it could go disastrously wrong, which is probably why most use trademark defence rather than dirty fighting.

And that's the point; it can be done, but it's not invisible, though it may not be noticed for a while.

When dirty tricks are visible, the fightback begins. And a dedicated loner with a grudge can do just as much damage; more, if he gets a sympathy movement.

I won't get boring with the ethics, but I suspect a loner with a grudge could square his conscience much easier than the corporate PR company could make excuses for dirty tricks.