jsherloc - 11:12 pm on Apr 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

LOLOLOLOL...

This is why I have a love/hate relationship with this industry.

inb4 Google's response about all of this being an extremely rare event, how they have vigorous processes and measures in place to prevent competitors harming websites, and how they WILL just discount links they believe that the owner has zero control over.

Also, inb4 G and friends use this occurrence as an example of how "bad links cannot hurt websites that provide value" or something along those lines...IF Dan's website doesn't actually drop significantly in a few weeks.

I have a feeling he is established enough as is, he's outside of the "normal" verticals in a sense and IMO this stuff DOES get treated differently as well, he has broken through numerous trust/quality thresholds in the SERPs I'm sure, and he may even be classified by Google as an authority result for certain query-types, not necessarily just branded SEO stuff. Not to mention the fact that he "doesn't rely on/or need Google traffic" and that just gives Google the PERFECT PR spin for this that fits in nicely with their ongoing theme regarding the entire negative SEO issue, it almost seems planned lol. "Don't rely on Google for traffic, if your site is good we'll take care of the rest, don't worry about building links either."

I just find it funny that over the years G and friends seem to have assumed that if the majority of your website traffic is coming from organic traffic in Google, your website probably provides less value than other websites where this is not the case. Wrap your head around that one and think about Google's stated SERP goals etc...Do I think it is a smart business model to rely on organic SERP traffic? Nope. But I'm not going to automatically assume that the website provides less value BECAUSE it generates all of its business through Google traffic. Think about it, and think about Panda's "value-judgements" that made decade-old authority hobby websites go POOF overnight, etc...

Now, when this exact same "unnatural links" event and link profile junkification happens to your average one year old website? MIGHT be a different story, trust/;quality thresholds and all...

Just waaaaaait for it.