Wait, what?
OP, your theory or speculation seems nice to believe in but I hardly believe this is true. Google seeks to improve its search results (hard to believe in but true) and not simply play with us and play mind games with us.
Veheme, actually, there is "very little" truth to your statement about Google seeking to improve its search results. You made that statement in sincerity but Google duped you much like Harold Camping duped his followers about the world coming to an end on May 21st, 2011.
To be crystal clear, Google's first and foremost primary mission is to increase revenue... by any means necessary. Which means that however the SERPS turn out is based solely on that objective and no other. To further clarify, if the search results were perfect for 99.999% of the searchers but Google's income dropped, they [Google] are going to re-architect the SERPs to increase their income even if it meant the SERPs made no logical, mathematical or scientific sense.
If you study and understand the stratagems, schemes, tactics as well as the architecture of "Social Engineering" then you will understand how governments, corporations, religious organizations and various groups use social engineering to manipulate, control, brainwash, mislead, deceive, impute fear on and to otherwise herd the people in a certain direction.
On one hand, Google is masterfully implementing Social Engineering schemes and stratagems to persuade the masses that everything they do is for the good of the SERPs. On the other hand, behind the scenes, they are nefariously engaging in manipulating the SERPs for their monetary gain. This is why they are facing antitrust lawsuits in the USA and Europe. Those with high level mathematical and computer programming skills have been able to detect and replicate these clandestine manipulations implemented by Google.
I can say from experience that...
That is a dangerous statement to establish financially altering decisions on. A person's experiences, however grand, should never be "THE" factor to set precedent for anything. That fact has proven time and again. Here is a case in point and I have plenty others.
I once did a research paper on a pilot who became wealthy from flying down to Colombia picking up yayo and transporting it back to New York. His experience? He had never got caught! When he decided to expand his operation, he hired some pilots by convincing them that HIS experience would be THEIR experience. Needless to say, two of his pilots quickly got nabbed by the DEA and ICE. A 3rd pilot went down to Colombia and met his death in a violent manner. Those three men lost everything because they made a decision based solely on the experience of that pilot.
Google is rewarding those quality sites or those sites which have great content since after many, many months of always upholding quality content in my links, I have finally seen the fruits of my labor which are untouchable rankings.
Here we go with experiences, yet again. Can you tell me how interpret these next set of experiences I'm going to describe? [Of course, I have to do this without eluding to who these individuals are or revealing their websites]. If you are in any of the private forums, then you probably know them and you most likely know about link sp*mming, and you probably know about cl*aking using Sh*d*w. I know link sp*mm*rs and cl*akers who have hundreds of highly competitive keywords on the pinnacle of the SERPs and they have not skipped a beat during these algo modifications. Translated; their sites are kicking butt!
So how are we to interpret THEIR experiences?
They clearly are using
questionable methods to obtain high rankings in the SERPs. What's worse, unlike you; they ARE NOT using great content! They are not even using good content. Unlike you, they are using what can categorically be classified as 3rd rate content 4th rate content and flat out gibberish. In a lot of cases, they are combining character spinning with plagiarized content and yet they are still ranking for highly competitive terms.
Again, how do you interpret their experiences seeing that the route they took is the total opposite of yours?
As many on BHW have pointed out on numerous threads, there are all kinds of sites currently ranking high in the SERPs. Some of which have absolutely NO CONTENT! There are sites ranking with great content, poor content, dupe content, plagiarized content, spun content and auto blog generated content. Consequently, anyone asserting to have come to some sort of concrete foregone conclusion at this stage of the shake up, is most likely selling snake oil SEO.
The point being? Or, to better phrase, "What is Google doing?"
Google is cleverly using Social Engineering for the purposes of throwing out smoke and mirrors. What is their objective? It's threefold:
(a). Their main objective is to increase the number of AdWords Advertisers, thereby instantly increasing their revenues. Clearly, these latest algo modifications have forced many IMers to sink money into AdWords to make up for their drop in the SERPs.
(b). Google is attempting to create subterfuge to ward off the Antitrust suits they are facing. If you are following that development, then you know that the FTC just hired Beth Wilkinson. Beth is a former DOJ prosecutor, who has never lost a case. When the FTC made that move, it was letting Google know that they are in fact going to be sued by the FTC much like the case of
The United States vs. Microsoft. Google is also facing the same type of lawsuit in Europe. If you recall, when Microsoft lost that lawsuit, it opened up the doors for companies like Google to sprout up.
(c). These algo modifications are also part of a public social engineering PR campaign to discourage and confuse those who compete against Google. Who competes against Google? Anyone not paying Google for advertising!
In summation, this is a time and era SEO wise, when everyone must buckle up, remain calm and ride out the storm. Right now, there are not a lot of concrete absolutes but one thing is for sure; you should not altogether stop your backlink building campaigns.
