Bitcoin Forum

Recently I hired some virtual assistants on Upwork to help me grow my website, however, for some reason they tried to destroy my search engine rankings.

Do we know if the country of India has something against bitcoin or anything recent in the news that would suggest this?

Did they do it on purpose? you should report it to Upwork then.

There are news and hot issue about bitcoin between RBI. They have lifted the ban on bitcoin last March-May 2020 but there's another speculation that they were interested again on banning it.

With a law, India plans lasting ban on cryptos (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/with-a-law-india-plans-lasting-ban-on-cryptos/articleshow/76330403.cms?from=mdr), the article was published just this June 2020.

In March 2020, the ban on cryptocurrency in India was lifted. I haven’t encountered this article from June 2020, so I’ll check it out. With the large number of people working in IT and content creation in India, it feels like they would be in support of bitcoin somewhat.

I’ve been working on correcting this for months now. Upwork has been giving me hazy responses every time I write a ticket or call them over the phone.

I think for now it is legal in India. At first they banned it and after sometime it was declared legal, but didn’t take long before they started talking about to whether to ban it again. But for now it’s still legal and I don’t think they have made any decisions yet.

As for what you said about your search engine rankings being destroyed, maybe you should look more into it and see whether there are things you’re no longer doing the right way, because a little can tamper with your rankings on search engine. I don’t really see why they should be destroying your rankings, there is nothing wrong with writing about Bitcoin.

How sure are you that they deliberately tried to destroy your SEO rankings, and not them simply underperforming or messing something up? There's a huge difference between the two.

Also, whatever the Indian government's opinion on Bitcoin is, we can't assume that it will be the same for the people of India. I don't think there's any reason for the people to hate on Bitcoin to the point that they would actually try to destroy Bitcoin-related businesses that hired them.

We have a lot of India brothers who are into Cryptocurrency as traders, investors and developers, Cryptocurrency is very strong in Indian's citizen, unfortunately it's government is not very lenient to Cryptocurrency, I have seen a thread here and on one article where the Indian government is against Cryptocurrency they even want to ban it.

It's not the Indian people that are against Cryptocurrency, it's the government, the Indian Cryptocurrency community is very strong here in Bitcointalk and they have contributed a lot i hope in the future Indian government will be lenient to Cryptocurrency.

The country of India doesn't have anything against Bitcoin. It is the current government. They are afraid that it will be used for Ponzi schemes, make people buy shitcoins, hoard black money and/or used for other illegal activities such as Hawala, finance terrorism, etc. But mostly they're afraid that if they allow it to exist. They might lose the next elections as banks will suffer when people start to use it more often to buy things and or put their savings in it. And recently PM's personal twitter account got hacked and it was used to ask donation in Bitcoin to hacker's address. Which would have only made them more paranoid about the whole thing.

So, to answer your question. People of India have nothing against it. They love it (most at-least), it is easier to find work outside India remotely as the payment method is easier and cheaper compared to other services such as Paypal, Skrill, etc. Traders love trading on it as it gives them a way to earn a living since unemployment has increased due to Covid-19. Plus it is a great investment option for many as Bank interests are currently very low.

And therefore, whatever the guy upwork did to your site was his own personal agenda and not country's. He might have lost money in some Crypto scam and/or someone must have told him that Bitcoin will make it hard for him to find work, etc. People who don't know about it usually have so much to say about it. Even if nothing of it is true.

The sentiment in India is largely negative about bitcoin considering the RBI's stance, trading ban and subsequent lifting of the ban by the supreme court.
Most people are agnostic and have no clue about Bitcoin in india so they tend to avoid it. As a currency, however, it is technically illegal so maybe that's why the negative outlook.

Here's an article that'll give you an overview of the situation:
https://m.economictimes.com/markets/stocks/news/sc-allows-trade-in-cryptocurrency-quashes-rbi-curb-on-use/articleshow/74470078.cms#:~:text=The%20Reserve%20Bank%20of%20India,dealing%20with%20or%20settling%20those

Video:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/sc-lifts-curbs-on-use-of-cryptocurrency-rbi-circular-declared-unreasonable/videoshow/74470928.cms

I think the situation you are facing isn't related to cryptocurrency and the country India. Maybe you've hired virtual assistants that have no ratings in Upwork and they are beginners in the industry?

AFAIK, only the government of India is against using cryptocurrency, and besides those you've hired are also need profit, that's the reason why they're in Upwork. You can just report them or give them a low rating for destroying your search engine rankings if they're the ones who fvked up your website. Also, the government already lifted the ban based on what I've read on coindesk.

https://www.coindesk.com/indias-supreme-court-lifts-banking-ban-on-crypto-exchanges

I know a lot of people in India are into bitcoin so maybe you must have hired the wrong person I think, yeah there was this time that Indian Government banned bitcoin but today it is totally legal there the law has been lifted. That virtual assistant I think somewhat did that for a reason I think personal agenda?

There's no reason why indian people will destroy your search engine rankings, its the quality of the person you have hired who messed it up. You shouldn't also generalized just because of what happened, I know indian people are good especially in technology, and there's no reason for to be angry with bitcoin.

From the recent news regarding bitcoin in india, it was stated that the ban was already lifted.  source (https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-legal-india-supreme-court-verdict-cryptocurrency/)

can you provide more information on how they tried to destroy your search engine? if the information is too important to be released to the public, I understand. but it would be better to have evidence for this kind of allegation

India has banned bitcoin before and lifted the ban again but right now they are reconsidering banning cryptocurrency again but according to the crypto exchange executives in the article(link below) is that a blanket ban on cryptocurrency is unlikely to happen. this article is the latest I could find regarding India and their stance on cryptocurrency

https://news.bitcoin.com/government-official-updates-progress-indias-cryptocurrency-law/

India is one of the countries that is quite advanced and leading on crypto. I think a lot of people are looking for their own benefit because it is a behavior that is used to being done not because of a country alone, maybe everyone must be like that, you should be careful.
I have also followed an original project from India and it seems that no progress has happened because it seems that from the start it seems that the goal is only to seek profit and cannot develop. although I am sure there are many good but so far have not found.

What specific service did you hire them for? And how did they destroy your ranking? I believe Upwork has a way to penalize bad service providers. Don't worry about ranking; the moment you start again and hire a better company, it can recover. Unfortunately, if what they did affected your reputation, it'll be a bit harder to recover, unless you do some sort of reputation management, which is an entirely different digital marketing service.

Yes, it seems to me that this information is the last, that gives us some fresh understanding about the situation with crypto in India. It seems to me that RBI (Reserve Bank of India) really will try to achieve the adoption of such kind of law at any cost))))) of course it is a pity for lots of people who live in India, lots of experienced and who engaged in crypto projects and so on are from India. It would be irreperable for indian people in case the adoption of this law will happen.

Back then, bitcoin is illegal in India, but it was already lifted and now confirmed legally by their government and RBI in March earlier this year.

I think there’s someone behind the crashing of your search engine rankings and not really related to Bitcoin’s status in India. Since it’s formally declared legal. Perhaps you can check if there’s something you’ve done incorrectly or you need to upgrade.

India is a very strict country in terms of almost absolutely everything.  I have a good buddy who lives in India and we often chat about the restrictions India places on things vs those that the United States places on things.  Almost entirely across the board you will see Indias government being much more strict about things especially when it comes to cryptocurrency.  There have been times where India made it illegal to own and transact bitcoin/cryptocurrency, though have since reversed that law.  The actually once again had a vote to make bitcoin illegal or not, thankfully it did not pass.  OTC buying is the best way to purchase bitcoin in India, I would never want the government knowing I owned any there.

In India the development on blockchain is going on one side. On the other side government isn't that supportive to the cryptocurrency related activities. The committee that's been assigned the role to analyse the need of cryptocurrency suggested the acceptance with limitations. By the time government isn't ready to go with the decision of the committee.

I wish you would give us more info because that is very strange. Just report them with proof and no one will hire them again. This doesn't make sense. Why would they take up the work in the first place just to damage it?
How were they destroying your seo? Maybe they didn't mean to but were using bad methods that mess up your seo? For example, if you buy views or you have duplicate content. All these methods to get quick fans or seo rating all use methods that google frowns upon. I don't think they were trying to damage it. I just think they just want to lie to get money and are desperate. Maybe they use bots to make posts for you? They could have made too many comment posts with low-quality blogs and many low-quality links. They could have submitted your site to low-quality indexing sites. Even beginners can ruin their own seo following these methods. The worst is when people pay for them.

Maybe provide a link to their profiles? I see your website is also down? the lack of info is off-putting but I am curious.

Yeah it seems harder for crypto to be accepted first by the government of India, there are a lot of news of crypto involving India though and they are very indecisive where to put cryptocurrency, they keep rolling the dice for the crypto. But as far as I know they are doing good in blockchain, there are projects with blockchain in India that does not need crypto to work, most probably putting blockchain in another field.

Sure it will be done with limitation, government does not want anything run wild in their country that would cause chaos for its people and the government itself.

I'd say rather they didn't know what they were doing and in the processed they managed to mess up your website. Or you might have got involved with crypto haters. India is not so hot on crypto but there are people within that embrace it, that would also be the minority though. In any case, you should file a report on these guys.

Upwork is a pretty much regulated site, and with those freelancers messing up your website, penalties on their account could be handed, plus you can leave them a negative rating for what they've done. Also, are you sure that they deliberately mess with your website and not just them misunderstanding some things? If they don't know you, why would they have a reason to trash on your business? Most Indians are good on what they are doing in terms of freelancing so I don't know why this has happened to you.

Also as it stands, the state of bitcoin's legality on the nation is rather shaky, and if there is anything that these guys can do, it is to promote bitcoin more and more than do something to trash it. There's a lot of potential on the Indian market about cryptocurrencies so I don't think this is the reason why those freelancers messed up your site. Maybe they just don't understand what they're doing.

this was also my guess  that the hired worker only got hired because he badly need a job but dont have an adequate knowledge on the said task . its waste of oppurtunity for the other workers that really deserve this job .

this chance is low to have them because if they are just a hater they wont do a plan like this because its time consuming . they can do a less hassel task like creating dummy account on a crypto forum and talk against it

That escalated quickly and they were going against it again based from the news that we've seen lately about Bitcoin in India. If Upwork doesn't respond properly, IIRC, there's feedback system for employers to give to their freelancers that you can use.

It's based from what you've experienced working with those people. Whether it's positive or not, you can use that function as an employer.

There is no certainty that bitcoin in India works under the same laws as for Example in Russia or the UK. You need to understand that the system of taxation and legal regulation is very weak and antonymous in nature, and this affects the entire economy as a whole. Including in the field of cryptocurrency.

more then likely they messed up the project without knowing it. dont think it is intentional as they need this job during this time of crisis. and a lot are desperate to get job and be paid.
 be direct to your hired personnel and ask what the real problem is? maybe they dont know the impact of what they are doing to your platform. or as others have implied, they dont know what theyre doing, to the point that they f*cked up your site. sorry to say this but seems that this is your case here.
 just hire a more competent individual..

I think you chose the bad virtual assistants, so there's a problem with your search engine rankings. So don't blame the people of India,
because I believe the people of India have no problem with Bitcoin. And some of the articles I read, that India has a fairly large crypto
community. It is true that several times the Indian government has banned Bitcoin, but that is not the reason people of India hate Bitcoin.

Well, it's entirely different from the countries that you just given as an example. There's tension from RBI against bitcoin and despite they've lifted the ban it just a few months ago.

It's still unclear on their side. Crypto folks from there can't do anything if there's a big body like this that interrupts bitcoin to continue.

You must verify the accounts of the virtual staff you hired to enhance your website. There is a lot of work to be done to get an account in a good position. How did you get in touch with the people you worked with on your own account?. They have no love for their own upwork accounts?. What they don't know is that if a man's bad reviews fall into his account, he will have trouble getting work from that account. Thoughts are afoot to ban Bitcoin in India but no final report has been received so far.

If this is the case then you should first of all complain to the upwork community about those accounts. As far as I know, the upwork community will take very strict action in all these matters. But the point here is that you have to give them all the information correctly. They will give you all the details of how they wanted to harm your website and what has been done from which accounts. I think the Indian government will very soon declare all types of cryptocurrencies, even bitcoin, illegal for their country. There is nothing to do but wait to see the end result.

If an individual you hired was an asshole and tried to destroy your website, you need to blame him and do not put the blame on the entire country, by the way you could report the individual or user if he tried to sabotage your website but what does India has a whole have anything to do with the event  ::).

There are many BTCitcoiners in India but you will find many scammers and assholes because it has a billion population. Put the details of the user you hired and let the world know if he tried to destroy your rankings on purpose rather than having assumptions on why he did ;).

I think, Bitcoin now legalized in India which the government is now enjoying, giving the citizens self employed during the pandemic which they are now making more profit from their investment.

Its so sad that you are facing this .As i know recently they banned cryptocurrency(not sure) so if you buy it from Upwork you can report it to them so that they will take action against them.

There are recent news about the banning and lifting of the banning of Bitcoin in the country of India circulating around the forum the last time I have checked and also it have got into some news articles related to Bitcoin. But as of the moment after all sorts of confusion of banning, lifting, re-banning cycle that happened on India, I think Bitcoin is already legal as of now.

With regards to the virtual assistants that you have hired, you must do report those certain individuals so that they won't be able to victimized other people again and must serve as an awareness to the crowd to get rid of those people who have destroyed your website so that they won't get into the same situation as you are right now.

I am an Indian guy working in IT myself and I love crypto. Crypto situation is not that bad here as the media reports.
Though the RBI is against crypto, we the people are supporting crypto. I am sorry you had to face the issue with your SEO.
But are you sure that those guys deliberately do it with the intention to mess with your SEO rankings ?

Indian guys generally offer less prices for the same work offered by another guy. May be you hired people who actually didn't knew what they are doing.
You could have hired professionals instead. We don't have anything against bitcoin brother.
Either the developers are not so experienced or they must have done it unintentionally.

You should try contacting those developers and ask them why they did it.

It's like you hired the wrong people, who are not expert in what you asked them to do. Better still, try and find another virtual assistants that will help you grow website other than Upwork.
Indians government has nothing against crypto presently cos their whole focus is on covid-19 vaccine

India has been very unstable when it comes to crypto regulations. There are probably two strong sides there, with one being pro-crypto and another one being strictly against it. With both sides having big influence, the regulations and project laws jump from one to another, from banning to lifting the ban. So I'm not surprised that there's a project law about the ban right now because the ban was lifter just recently. All this is no reason to destroy the work by the op with the website, though, so maybe these were just malevolent people.

What happened to you is extremely sad; But it seems to me that the virtual assistants you have hired are inexperienced, they may not have done it on purpose, it happened out of ignorance. Upwork is a fairly regulated site, where job ratings are given to those who work; So if you do any wrong, you can give a negative rating in their name. However, it is not right to blame the whole country or region for the bad deeds of any person.

I also think the same,this is what happen if you are not getting deep in hiring someone to work with OP because this is a serious Job and need a experience partner.

They did not try to destroy your site OP instead they don't know that this will affect your site.
and this is by Innocence so next time make sure that whom you hires has really experience and willing to help you.

No i think people has no problem with bitcoin actually the majority of people didn't understand crypto because there is no way to teach crypto to people and also it didn't use in daily use so people didn't take Bitcoin or any other crypto seriously even they compare them with Gambling or anything wrong thing.

I don't have the same opinion as you regarding the awareness about cryptocurrency in India. I have been to small towns and villages in India and I have met with Bitcoin investors in these unlikely places. Obviously cryptocurrency users face a lot of challenges, since trading is not fully legal in India. You never know when the authorities can cause trouble to you.

May be you hired the wrong person? May be they are not capable of, for what they were hired? Why would you directly charging INDIAN? I guess you have picked the wrong person as you know there are a lot of freelancers in subcontinent who lack of quality.
To my known, none of the professional freelancers would destroy their clients. I am a freelancer for a long time now and I have been introduced with Bitcoin through freelancing. Now, I'm more comfortable to use Bitcoin as my payment.

I, as a freelancer, will tell you that how you communicate with the client and whether you observe communication hygiene depends on your work and portfolio. I have noticed many times that if the conversation does not stick in the first minutes, then it will continue to be the same. But it happens that it turns out to find a special approach for everyone and then the deal is almost always closed mutually beneficial for both parties.

Interesting perspective. I think this is probably what I have been running into.

I sure hope they care about having a job! I would love to pay a guy exactly what he's worth, every penny, to help build my rankings - not have them destroy my hard work.

If you look at the huge Indian crypto community, I think the people of India are very welcome to Bitcoin. Moreover, the number of
poverty is quite high in India, making Bitcoin even more attractive, because Bitcoin can be used as a source of income. So you are
hiring the wrong person, because the people of India are not against Bitcoin. If the Indian government bans Bitcoin it is because it
wants to protect its citizens from the many illegal activities that use Bitcoin, I think the Indian government will regulate Bitcoin soon.
So the prohibition against Bitcoin can be lifted immediately.