msndude - 4:00 pm on Aug 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

Yes, but I *am* reading the threads -- I just don't have access to the tools I'd use to test queries or URLs.

There was indeed a software update on Thursday night last week, aimed at reducing spam, and given the timing and the symptoms you guys report, I'm betting that's the cause of your troubles. Any change we make has some negative impact, unfortunately, but(compared to updates in the past) the negative feedback from this one has been very, very mild, so it's not likely we'd consider undoing it.

I'm not going to tell you how to SEO your sites, but I'll offer some advice that might help with this particular update, since I think this is good advice in general.

1) Make your page(s) more "user-friendly." Think hard about whether it looks like something a customer would find easy to use.
2) Note that sometimes Less is More.

Remember that webmasters are our partners, not our customers. We expect our partners to have the same concern for pleasing the customer that we do. That should help you understand what we're trying to accomplish in the long term, and if you optimize for that, you won't go wrong.