BaseballGuy - 7:19 pm on Aug 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

"Oh right, yeah, links and over-optimization. Luckily I am good on both fronts." So was I, and Penguin took 80% of my Google traffic. I am not penalized (asked for reinclusion and got that confirmed) and I never have had a warning email about unnatural backlinks or anything. An SEO pro from this forum looked at my site and was mystified. I've never really done any SEO. I have four sites that are similar but in different niches and only one of them was hit. The biggest difference? The hit site had a lot of genuine, editorial outbound links. It's possible Penguin mistook genuine linking for a spam tactic. You can bet I'm linking out far less now.

Here is my .02


Google (Matt Cutts) cannot look at the overall index after an algorithm update. If they could, we would not be seeing these really crappy results.

My theory is that Google has "X" amount of queries they look at. After an algorithm update, then look at the "X" amount of queries and then determine "is this good" or "is this bad".

So this is why Penguin is such a success in their eyes.....because the data set they are looking at, shows just that.

Could this be a simple matter of Google looking at bad data (or incomplete data) in order to make their decisions on whether or not the algorithm is working?

Or could it be that they just don't have control over the 100 head beast that they have created? They chop off a few heads and a few more appear. Some heads cannibalize other heads. Some heads are genetic defects and spend their time drooling from the side of their mouth whilst staring off into space?


Anyone care to comment on that?