Targeted Negative "SEO" Tactics: Facebook

The attached figures will show how Facebook's algorithims are sensitive to negative SEO tactics.

Indie Review Magazine obtained the majority of their likes via paid advertising through Facebook. 

They achieved ad performance in both international and US markets of 0.01 to 0.03 cents a like on average. However, the magazine is suffering from a very serious troll sitaution. 

A violent stalker - who has also been sending employees death threats and threatening messages/etc on social media sites - began targeting the magazine's facebook page as soon as it obtained some success. 

You can see from the graphs that the organic likes (the light purple) increased as the paid likes increased, but decreased disproportionatly to the paid likes. 

Thus, a massive decline in the organic likes directly preceeded a steady decline in paid page likes, which was a direct result of plumuting ad performance (because the "ranking" algorithims at Facebook, disproportionately value page un-likes). As a result it is possible for negative SEO firms and/or individuals to game the system. 

As a result of these negative SEO tactics the magazine has noted ad performance which ranges from 0.02 cents per like and swiftly changing to greater than 4 dollars a like. This is what they refer to as the "money dump". 

Slowly over time, the stalker has built up greater than one thousand fake scripted accounts, that he usses to automatically unlike their page whenever a promising post is made. 

We suspect and our data highly suggests that Facebook's content ranking algorithims are especially sensitive to this tactic, thus it is possible that there are many pages out there who are suffering from dismal ad performance which may be directly related to sitatuions out of their control. 

Negative SEO tactics emloyed by a competitor or in the case of Indie Review Magazine, a stalker, can have a very significant negative impact on the performance of an advertising campaign. 

Without acess to Facebook's ranking algorithims we cannot say for certain what is going on behind the scenes at Facenook, but it is obvious from our data that Facebook's algorithims are very suceptible to negative SEO tactics. 

If you would like to contact me regarding this reserach, you may email me at [e-mail].

附件中的图表将展示脸书（Facebook）的算法（algorithms）对负面搜索引擎优化（SEO）策略的敏感性。

独立评论杂志（Indie Review Magazine）通过脸书平台的付费广告获得了绝大多数平台点赞。

该杂志在国际市场与美国市场的广告投放平均单点赞成本仅为0.01至0.03美分，但与此同时，其正遭遇极为严重的恶意账号骚扰问题。

一名暴力跟踪者——曾向该杂志员工发送死亡威胁及社交媒体骚扰信息——在该杂志取得一定成功后，立刻将目标对准其脸书主页。

从图表中可以看到，自然点赞（organic likes）的浅紫色曲线随付费点赞量增长而上升，却会随付费点赞量的变化出现不成比例的下滑。

因此，自然点赞量的大幅下降直接先于付费主页点赞量的持续下滑，而这一现象的直接诱因是广告投放效果的暴跌——因为脸书的排名算法（ranking algorithms）会过度偏向页面取消点赞行为。由此可见，负面SEO服务商或个人完全可以通过此类手段操纵平台系统。

受此类负面SEO策略影响，该杂志的广告单点赞成本已从0.02美分飙升至4美元以上，这便是他们口中的“烧钱陷阱（money dump）”。

随着时间推移，该跟踪者已搭建起超过1000个虚假脚本账号，每当该杂志发布有潜力的帖子时，这些账号便会自动取消对其主页的点赞。

我们的推测与数据均表明，脸书的内容排名算法对此类操作尤为敏感，因此可能有大量主页正遭受糟糕的广告投放效果影响，而这一问题可能源于其无法控制的外部因素。

竞争对手或如本案例中的跟踪者所采用的负面SEO策略，会对广告投放效果造成极为显著的负面影响。

由于无法获取脸书的排名算法细节，我们无法确切知晓平台后台的运行逻辑，但从我们的数据来看，脸书算法显然极易受到负面SEO策略的攻击。

若您希望就本研究与我取得联系，可发送邮件至[e-mail]。