scottsonline - 3:12 am on Oct 28, 2010 (gmt 0)

Of course throttling and shaping are part of the quality control. Think of it as the second nuclear key. You may be able to fool google with paid links and other schemes which would have long ago allowed you to dominate the SERPS, but by making your traffic conform to a curve it gives them more time to assess your site. I was pretty sure of this all along I'm convinced of it now.

The only way you can game them long term now is to weasel your way into the traffic growth AND have good metrics at that point. Otherwise you rob Peter to pay Paul.

By design you can't go from 4500 to 45000 clicks in a day unless there is a viral component. You can't do it through picking up several top quality links because they will even out your traffic anyway and only slowly ramp it up.

True quality control and a great idea to take care of the average black hatter. What they cannot combat yet is the very sophisticated link systems im seeing in October.