potentialgeek - 9:54 pm on Oct 31, 2008 (gmt 0)

> It's the home page that has gone missing/dropped.

Yep, or lowered. That's a really weird algo bug. It's the part of a site that should be most stable. They're messing with its ranking and authority/sitelinks.

The other sign of the 'Brat Update' challenging authority is the hits to old sites ranking #1 for a keyword/phrase.

Other than that, I'm now wondering about Ranking History. If Google, which collects Ranking History data, for some reason is comparing recent ranking with old ranking. I'm seeing ranking on some things that looks very similar to a year ago.

But can you think of any way that Ranking History data could logically be used to serve up the best SERPs today?

Another thought is that for months I've been partially penalized for something but didn't know it, and now Google is reverting on that old penalty (or dialing it down). If memory serves, Cutts said earlier this year Google was removing a penalty.

Anyway, let's keep in mind that some "new" penalties could actually be deletions/reductions of old penalties. A major dial-down or complete removal of a penalty could look a lot like a brand spanking new penalty.

p/g

[edited by: potentialgeek at 10:09 pm (utc) on Oct. 31, 2008]