robenochs - 11:44 pm on Sep 30, 2004 (gmt 0)

We should spend some time on this thread comparing notes and trying to understand what happened and what could be triggering our sites to nose dive.

I agree. well obviously I have experienced the same problems otherwise I wouldn't be here reading this... so here goes what I did to think the problem was ME and not google. However, I do belive that G has implimented something new to catch certain issues.

For example. On one of my sites, the home page of that site USED TO BE a 5/10PR and droped to PR0 along with most of my traffic. Now the weird part is that the other sub pages are still hanging around PR4-PR6.

SO.. the only thing I can think of is this: This website that I am talking about is PPC with your typical gazillion "Popular Searches" organized nicely on the home page...

What I am thinking is that G no longer wants to see all of these NON-Relative links... That's my guess. I have also done some other SEO stuff and reading this thread has got me wondering if possibly the other
things that I did were a factor, but no - because the subpages are still fine (knock on wood).

Some interesting stattements from this thread that got my attention were:

1. "spamming the same word phrase in multiple instances"
2. optimizing meta-tags / doing SEO stuff and G not liking that to give the "little guy a chance"?

SOLUTION: diversify! more than one website and dont marry G - promote to other well know SE's!

There have been times over the last year when I've thought G's behaviour was akin to shooting themselves in the foot, but lately it seems that they've taken aim directly at their head

A-MEN to that quote...