Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I don't know how the initial list of sites was generated, probably a lot of manual review I'd guess, then from that starting list you can create a web of more known good sites.
This is why engaging in link directory schemes is so risky at this point, that's my opinion anyway.
The only way you can get authority type sites to link to yours is by having really good content. It's a pretty good formula as far as I'm concerned, and I think will be what saves google results long term, trustrank etc.
Anyway, one problem with these forums is that so many seos hang out here, and they of course always say the same thing each update, oh, this is horrible, oh this will destroy google, you know the drill, but after reading that for a few years, and seeing google income rise to their highest levels ever, I don't know, I don't pay much attention anymore to those claims, I think google knows their market better than most people here realize.
Unlike other updates where the authority knob has been cranked down, or even ripped clean off, this is more like a simple (mostly) ignoring of authority. Bigger authority sites that have a volume of linking keep ranks, while smaller good quality sites are displaced a bit by the large volume of useless spam... so instead of larger sites duking it out with smaller sites (more targeted or not), we have larger good quality sites duking it out with 2003 style link exchange network and blog comment spam.
If you cull out the large amount of added spam, and factor in a return of a significant number of lost sites, the battle between larger sites with a lot of targeted anchor text and (usually) less authoritative, smaller sites with a more limited focus, you kind of get an interesting thing to look at. The large volume of lost sites and the very large volume of new spam make the picture hard to see now though.
Taking the chance to sit here lurking, musing and taking an overview I wonder if it is a links issue. We don't sell links - no links exchange - no buying of links - no adsense - all white hat as far as aware.
I have noticed that most inbound links to us are to subdirectory content pages..shoot me down in flames on this one..but are inbound links to the sites adversely affected all to main page or to specific content/product pages within the site?
I think this is since they think Google SERPS will even out again soon and the listings will be where they need to be as far as SEO.. direct evidence that this is good for Yahoo and bad for Google.
-Hollyweird
Taking the chance to sit here lurking, musing and taking an overview I wonder if it is a links issue. We don't sell links - no links exchange - no buying of links - no adsense - all white hat as far as aware.I have noticed that most inbound links to us are to subdirectory content pages..shoot me down in flames on this one..but are inbound links to the sites adversely affected all to main page or to specific content/product pages within the site?
While I'm not fully clear on your last sentence's meaning, overall this is exactly what I'm seeing as well. I think one reason more people here are not reporting this type of thing is that most people here do not have this type of totally clean site. Even if it was just a one time link circle thing, whatever.
I won't shoot you down in flames, but I'll bet a lot of other people will, at least judging from what I saw on the bourbon updates, where even the suggestion that webmasters might hold the future of their sites in their own hands re fixing errors raised howls of protest, which if you ignored would result in correction. Too early to tell here though.
Update: I see changes on google.co.uk and 66.102.7.104, still waiting for what will be done in jagger3 which I think will start next week.
According to GoogleGuy 66.102.9.104 should be watched. 66.102.9.104 was stable all day, never saw a change today on it.
