Originally Posted by Expertpeon

I did an analysis on this back in May, after 2 weeks of 40+ hrs studying penguin and sites hit/not hit (along with actual work) I told every person on this forum that Penguin was all about links, and now links can have NEGATIVE value.

Everyone swore up and down that I was full of it for the most part, but I have been operating (quite successfully) upon this assumption since and also doing extensive negative SEO on competitors.

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackha...ml#post4292560

If only you people would listen.

I knew this, simply by analyzing enough sites to know. It's extremely obvious that on-site factors had little, if anything, to do with Penguin.

I got the same reaction a while ago when I said that Google manual rates websites. Sucks even when you're right in the end because you still don't get the credit! haha

Originally Posted by deviatus

Actually on G's own site they say they only prohibit "excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging".

That by definition makes "non-excessive" link exchanges white hat, whatever non-excessive means.

Excessive is determined by a computer program which is very flawed. It has no rational thought. It is just a matter of time until you trigger it.

who ate all the pies

matt did!

Originally Posted by partymarty4870

who ate all the pies

matt did!

Your avatar is awesome, that is the naughtiest of lines!

Originally Posted by gorang

Your avatar is awesome, that is the naughtiest of lines!

Lol too funny.

Anything that Matt Cutt's say take it with a pinch of salt really

I have never heard Matt Cutts provide any proper explanation to any questions asked.

Originally Posted by Emergent

So many erroneous lines of thinking in this thread.

Two points I think can be considered facts:
1) Google owns the traffic fair and square. They are a natural monopoly, there is a almost no barrier to entry in creating a search engine, and there are hundreds out there. With these factors in mind, Google is a private company, they fairly and competitively gained all their traffic (you and I and everyone else in the world typing in google.com into their web-browser over and over and over again), and therefore they can do ANYTHING they want with their traffic, and that is how it should be.

2) As far as search results go Google is most concerned with one metric over and above EVERYTHING else: Positive user experience. At the end of the day all changes to their algorithm hope to, at the margin, improve the search you, your mother, your teacher, your friend just typed in and pressed "Google Search" for...

If your sites tanked don't start bitching, get to work on rebuilding them or new ones. 9/10 serious SEO'ers I know loved the updates, less competition now, most of their competitors lost ground also, they see it as an advantage now that everyone is scrambling and screaming 'WTF do I do!?'.

Im not sure about a lot of things but Google is NOT a private company, It is a publicly traded company GOOG on the Nasdaq and other exchanges current price as of this post $680.00.

Regards

Since Penguin and Panda got released almost in same dates, it was a great confusion for everyone. Many ask for solutions for Panda but when we analyze , it could be a Penguin issue and vise versa. I guess goog need this confusion to be there in existence.

It all boils down to what Google considers the legitimate way of improving the ranking of your website. Google has given in its guidelines certain practices as being "spamming techniques" for the modification of website rank. These include keyword and Meta tags stuffing, invisible and tiny text, page redirects, and link-based manipulation. Although stuffing techniques can be easily detected, it is not quite clear what Google means by link-based manipulation. Many linking techniques even those considered white hat, have now come under a cloud of confusion.

However, it is quite clear that Penguin is targeting websites that are building a powerful backlink profile through unnatural link exchanges. This also does not mean that all reciprocal linking is frowned upon by Google. It comes down to, how natural is your link exchange, and the level of mutually correlated content. Therefore, if you are depending on link exchanges and backlink warehousing, it is obviously out of the question now. Even when you are exchanging links across websites with co-related topics, it is necessary to consider the quality of the content on these sites because of the Panda update.

Resource links:
http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/08/g...ent/#more-8432
http://moneyctl.com/seo/top-5-seo-my...panda-updates/

Regards,

Shawn

Google will change things up in a few months when they release Bird Dog 1.0

Originally Posted by TheContentAuthority

It all boils down to what Google considers the legitimate way of improving the ranking of your website. Google has given in its guidelines certain practices as being "spamming techniques" for the modification of website rank. These include keyword and Meta tags stuffing, invisible and tiny text, page redirects, and link-based manipulation. Although stuffing techniques can be easily detected, it is not quite clear what Google means by link-based manipulation. Many linking techniques even those considered white hat, have now come under a cloud of confusion.

However, it is quite clear that Penguin is targeting websites that are building a powerful backlink profile through unnatural link exchanges. This also does not mean that all reciprocal linking is frowned upon by Google. It comes down to, how natural is your link exchange, and the level of mutually correlated content. Therefore, if you are depending on link exchanges and backlink warehousing, it is obviously out of the question now. Even when you are exchanging links across websites with co-related topics, it is necessary to consider the quality of the content on these sites because of the Panda update.

Resource links:
http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/08/g...ent/#more-8432
http://moneyctl.com/seo/top-5-seo-my...panda-updates/

Regards,

Shawn

Great points Shawn. I also saw that SEO by the sea article and thought that was interesting. Wonder if that is on the way...