4eyes - 2:48 pm on Oct 3, 2002 (gmt 0)

Worth stating, if a little obvious....

We all need to consider that there are two ways for your site to improve its ranking

1) Factors pertaining to your site
2) Factors on the sites above you being penalised or de-emphasised

I have a couple of dead sites that have risen through the ranks simply because others above have been penalised by this update.

Of course, in a way that means that my sites have factors that are now given more emphasis.

However, if I had improved the anchor text(or some other factor) and then seen my site rise, I might then consider (in error) that my anchor text change was a plus factor. The real reason might be that 20 sites above me got hit bad because of too high a KWD. My anchor text change might actually be detrimental in the algo, just not enough to balance against the other sites penalties.

When so many variables are changing at the same time it is almost impossible to analyse based on a small sample.