Effective web marketing and content creation sometimes seems simple enough: worry about your rankings, pump out consistent, quality content and use effective marketing campaigns to appeal to and draw in the masses. Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. At any given time, there are probably dozens of other people just like you – attempting to compete within the same categories for the same audience. While not all competitors are malicious, some are absolute scumbags and will do anything to gain an advantage. Continue reading below to figure out if your competitor is a complete schmuck who’s focused on doing you harm while benefiting from it.

Keyword Robbery

Some competitors will resort to pinging search engines through PPC campaigns in the hopes that they can trick visitors into thinking that they are actually you. What does this mean exactly? Chances are that your website or company is the first result when you search for your website’s name – unless it’s a common name. Some competitors will purchase ads relating to your keywords that will attempt to trick users into thinking that they are you. What a nasty tactic – and definitely the embodiment of a schmuck.

Content Snatching

Perhaps you are a great writer and come up with excellent pieces for your blog or website. If your website is popular, then chances are that there is a schmuck somewhere waiting to grab your fresh content upon publication. If they are really clever, they may even be able to get the content aggregated from their website faster than you can from yours, giving them all the credit. Be on the lookout for word-for-word copies of your content, as well as ever-so-slightly revised versions.

Comment Linking

Some of these schmucks have some real brass between their legs. After plagiarizing and imitating your website, they may then turn to leaving comments and links to their website on each of your blog entries. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for people doing this; there are ways to shut down this sort of activity, but one must be careful not to block all comments – as this may be exactly the goal they are trying to achieve.

Registering Domains/Names Before You

We may not instantly think of every platform through which we wish to brand our sites or blogs – but a competitive schmuck might. It is entirely possible (and legal) for such an individual to buy up domain names that resemble your website’s domain or register accounts on social networking sites that – at least to the untrained eye – appear to be related to your website or blog. If direct impersonation is occurring, then there are petitioning options available to have the accounts removed. It is still, however, a pain to deal with this type of schmuckery.

Negative Marketing

A real schmuck will attempt to try pinging search engines with content that portrays you in a negative light. This tactic is pretty old yet pretty effective; if they can distribute enough content about your website that makes it look like an inferior source of information, individuals may go to the competitor’s website to read about it – and in the process, become visitors of their site.