Negative SEO
Negative SEO is an attempt by a competitor to lower your rankings with spam links, scraped content or fake reports.
Real impact
Google ignores most spam links automatically. More effective attacks are scraping, fake DMCA notices and negative pages created about your brand.
Defences
Watch Search Console, file copyright notices for scraped content and counter notices against fake takedowns.
Frequently asked questions
Rankings dropped. Is it negative SEO?
Usually it is an algorithm update or technical issue; check those first.