For the average SEO consultancy, Christmas and the New Year can be a troubling time, not because of worries of what Santa might bring, but because this is the time of year when cyber criminals stalk the land in full force.
Internet shopping has boomed over the years and as every good UK SEO consultant knows, getting ecommerce platforms ship shape for the Christmas shopping frenzy is a major task which can start as early as the summer.
But, whist the legit SEO teams sharpen their keyboards and brain; the nefarious hackers are never far behind.
Indeed, suffice to say that the average cyber criminal is quite an accomplished SEO expert and will likely be up to speed on all the latest techniques. And they will have one objective in mind, to sit on the terms that people use at Christmas.
For cyber criminals, Christmas is an absolute joyous time. There are many ways they try to ensnare people at Christmas, but for many, it’s a simple case of getting the SEO right. And this is how it goes.
They invest in a domain name website that looks almost identical to say a well known retailer. They then start an SEO campaign (mostly black hat) which targets keywords associated with the retailer. If the search requests are big enough, they might decide to SEO spelling mistakes which thousands of people make looking for the right keyword. And the retailer wouldn’t always think to target the mis-spelt keyword.
But low and behold, those who tap in the misspelt word, see the bogus domain and website on the top of the search listings, click onto the site and are sucked into purchasing something they’ll never see and at the same time parting with their personal and banking ids. It’s easily done.
And that, gives SEO consultants a major headache.