Understanding the Importance of Cyber Security for Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is one of the most important factors when it comes to organically attracting new traffic to your website and expanding brand awareness. There are many factors that go into successfully optimizing your website for search engine rankings. Many people will be aware of the link between effective search engine optimization and written content or keyword usage, but the connection with cybersecurity might be less immediate. While the understanding of the impact of cybersecurity is well common, it is no less important.
Blacklisting and Penalties
When your website has been the victim of a successful cyber security attack, this will not only have an impact on your business’ reputation and your customers but also on your website’s potential performance. One of the most obvious impacts that cyber security can have on search engine optimization is blacklisting and penalties.
The top search engines have clearly stated penalties that are designed to safeguard their users against the risks of cybercrime. Not only can you expect to incur penalties after you have been a victim of a successful cybercrime, but if the attack affects your customers, you might even face long-term blacklisting. This means that no matter how successful your SEO techniques are, one successful cyberattack could limit your entire future potential.
Downtime
Whether you are interested in search engine optimization for BigCommerce or a small business, downtimes can have serious consequences for your long-term success. A successful cybersecurity attack can lead to an unplanned prolonged period of business websites. Not only will this have an impact on internal productivity levels and sales but also your search engine ranking. This is because when a website is down, search engines recognize this as a security breach which in turn limits your potential future ranking.
Website’s Crawlability
There are many different types of cyber security attacks out there, one of which is the use of a malicious bot to crawl the website with the intention of scraping or data theft. This, in turn, can have a huge impact on your search engine ranking potential. There are a number of reasons why a malicious bot can have a big impact on your search engine ranking. For example, a malicious bot might crawl your site, copy content and publish it. If a search engine bot finds this content before yours, then your site will be viewed as a duplicate and therefore have limited potential.
Negative Reviews
Website reviews are a hugely important metric when it comes to search engine optimization and customer conversions. Obtaining positive reviews can help you to improve your search engine rankings as it will prove to search engines that you are credible and worth the high-ranking spots. When a customer realize a website has experienced a cyber security attack, they are more likely to leave a negative review. The more negative reviews that your website has, the more of an impact this will have both in terms of consumer trust and search engine ranking potential.
