1 year anniversary of penguin, no recovery

[Shepherd]

Well it's been a year since our site got hit by penguin demoting pages for specific keywords. Over the course of the year we have attempted to correct the issues that presumably caused the manual action and as of yet have had no success regaining the ranking we had for the specific keywords.

Early on we launched a campaign to remove the inbound links that we created/had built. We were successful in getting about 90% of the links removed.

We submitted a list of all links that were created/built by us to google along with the attempts that were made to have them removed.

We removed directories/pages that had excessive inbound links. (for example, example.com/widgets was removed and the content was added to example.com/widget)

We did not use the disavow tool.

We did no link building since penguin was applied.

We have not yet seen any upward movement in the serps for the affected keywords, still ranking 900+ for the affected keywords and the pages that are ranking are obscure pages that should not be ranking for the keyword.

Also, when penguin hit we lost site links and those have not come back even for a search of the domain name (example.com).

With the exception of the site links issue I would think that we have not regained our rankings due to the fact that we have not done any link building since penguin.

We still rank very well for long tail keywords.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

I mentioned that observation too, right after the patent hit the light of day.

There's actually quite a few mentions of bouncing around in the EMD update thread [webmasterworld.com] where people are redirecting to non-EMD domains.

I think "triggering events" like you suggest could definitely "be in play" for it though.

Maybe, when a site is currently penalized, when a redirect happens, significant changes to page titles, significant changes to a large number of pages at the same time, significant inbound link/anchor text changes, and things along those lines, so "minor changes in the wild" get ignored by it, but if there's a "threshold" hit over time or major changes they "check to see" why you're doing it?

Maybe we should break this off or start another one or something?

[tedster]

I would think if they really weren't using it at all he wanted to "put the "misconceptions they were to rest" he would just flat out "we're not using that right now at all" just like he has with the keyword meta tag, but he doesn't say it's not being used anywhere in the video.

I think Matt often gives what a politician might call a "nuanced statement". That is, he notices the SEO community going overboard on some idea and he trued to pull that back. Because of the complexity of the current machine learning algorithm, he often cannot honestly give a categorical denial. But he and Amit Singhal were extremely honest right after Penguin was released telling us that it was extremely unlikely we could reverse engineer the thing.

That's still the case, I think, and I'm wiling to back off on using this particular patent in my day-to-day thinking - even if some "anecdotal evidence" seems to pop up from time to time.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

Obviously without the half dozen threads at Google Group and the 200 posts dedicated to this specific topic I cannot possibly make you see the connection.

I don't bother with Google Groups often. Too many people who don't read what posts actually say before they try to give advice imo. And I'm really not sure where they NHL, ESPN stuff came from. I don't own a sports site, haven't owned a sports site, don't see myself owning a sports site in the future, so they're not my competition.

[edited by: TheOptimizationIdiot at 8:45 pm (utc) on May 3, 2013]

[fathom]

And in this one you're saying a site that didn't do any link development probably lost their inorganic (developed) links and that's why they don't rank now. Uh, not sure I follow that one either.

No... if you have no links or few links the day you launched your website you don't rank very well. It isn't because you are devalued it's because you haven't built that value yet.

Can you explain how you think a site that didn't build links lost it's rankings due to inorganic (developed) links being discounted, because I'm not sure I follow your reasoning.

Once PENGUIN devalues inorganic (unnatural links) those links are dead you cannot resurrect them or you cannot recover them. That also suggests you cannot resurrect or recover the ranks and traffic spawn from such links.

All you can do is start getting new ones (like you did years ago).

Maybe I don't understand what you're calling inorganic links, because the post about the site clearly states they didn't build any links to it, so what are you referring to as inorganic links in a situation where links were not being built prior to or after Penguin?

Ralph_Slate's post (if that's the domain you suggest clearly states they didn't build any links to it) doesn't belong in this thread... he does not have a PENGUIN problem... even Google reps stated that.

What you have is a website about one thing that ranks unbelievably well but those aren't the results that concerns him... what concerns him are queries he has nothing but a title element, a header and a one liner that use to rank and now don't and that occurred on April 24... so no amount of research will convince Ralph_Slate he does not have a PENGUIN problem... he has a "thin content" problem. Not thin content for his complete site just the queries he lost results for.

Seriously, if all you got on a page is but a title element, a header and a one liner of page content (and then numerical stats) why would you believe you deserve ranks for that?

<added>I probably broken 3 or 4 rules so edit as required</added>

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

That's still the case, I think, and I'm wiling to back off on using this particular patent in my day-to-day thinking - even if some "anecdotal evidence" seems to pop up from time to time.

I think I'm going to "err with caution" and assume it's in play somehow or could be any day, so I'll stick with "make big changes at one time" and wait.

I don't think I'll let it "influence minor changes" though, but "reworking a page" completely or "major changes" to it, I think I'll assume they're going to check and try to get it right the first time and leave it until it stabilizes rather than "having to tinker" for a while to get it right.

---

No... if you have no links or few links the day you launched your website you don't rank very well. It isn't because you are devalued it's because you haven't built that value yet.

You lost me from discussing with this one.

Totally invalid assumption. I have a site that's been pinned to #1 for what it was designed to rank for since about a week after it launched with 1 non-scraper link. It's going on 6 years of sitting there now and the one non-scraper link is from a twitter account that doesn't tweet.

It even outranks the major national brand and the "big players" in the niche that have way higher page rank for the same queries. (Go figure)

[fathom]

You lost me from discussing with this one.

Totally invalid assumption. I have a site that's been pinned to #1 for what it was designed to rank for since about a week after it launched with 1 non-scraper link. It's going on 6 years of sitting there now.

And this is an average website, as in, most websites get pinned #1 in about a week with one link?

[incrediBILL]

As a software engineer I'll tell you why I don't think it's easy to recover from Penguin or some of the other stuff they're now doing. I think they flag your domain when they run they're Penguin software and once you're flagged, that's it, you can't squirm and try to get out of it without manual assistance.

The easiest way to "recover" IMO is to move to a new domain, change some of the things you thought got your site flagged in the first place, and then wait for traffic.

If you waited a year to recover and nothing happened waiting a year to rebuild is about the same thing.

That's my current line of thinking is to just abandon ship and try again under a new domain that isn't condemnded and tagged for demolition.

Just a theory as I think they're making sure people don't easily squirm out of the penalty or whatever this is and I'd NOT 301 redirect to keep your old IBLs and PR as you're trying to avoid the issue, not say "HEY! WE MOVED! FLAG US WITH PENGUIN AGAIN!" - just move and let it go, done.

[purplekitty]

As a software engineer I'll tell you why I don't think it's easy to recover from Penguin or some of the other stuff they're now doing. I think they flag your domain when they run they're Penguin software and once you're flagged, that's it, you can't squirm and try to get out of it without manual assistance.

So you think there's something within the Penguin algo that says "this site is terrible, no need to ever review it again?"

Not to mention, how are people coming up with these theories when there hasn't been a Penguin update since October 2012? Why are people expecting any changes in the meantime?

[incrediBILL]

I think the algo just tags the site and once tagged stays tagged until they rerun the algo which is pretty much what Matt Cutts said about Panda as well. People trying to escape Panda had to wait until Panda was run again, it was not a real-time process.

[purplekitty]

Okay that makes sense and that's what I'm thinking at this point. Which is why I'm confused with so many people making change after change without the algo being rerun.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Shepherd]

The easiest way to "recover" IMO is to move to a new domain

That's a good idea in most cases I'm sure. We, however, are still doing fine without google, be better with some google traffic but we're getting along just fine without. We're not going to change our brand to chase google. As a funny aside, the sites that google is showing in our place are such junk that it's cheap and easy to buy traffic from them instead of chasing google.

there hasn't been a Penguin update since October 2012

I'm not sure that anyone this side of google knows when or how often penguin has been run.

[incrediBILL]

We're not going to change our brand to chase google.

I wasn't suggesting that, I'd just change the domain slightly so if it was previously "example.com" then I'd make it "exampleonline.com" of something like that so the domain changes just a little. As a matter pf fact, subdomains should still be OK and not hindered by Penguin as Google treats them as a separate domain so just switching the ecommerce to shop.example.com should be enough to bypass the flagged domain, and leave the brand 100% intact.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

...so just switching the ecommerce to shop.example.com should be enough to bypass the flagged domain...

That makes me wonder.

Do you think it would be an idea to just stop the canonicalization of www and non-www, then let the one not "tagged" by penguin rank without redirecting? (IOW: Basically remove www non-www canonicalization, duplicate yourself and let Google decide to rank the version not impacted by Penguin.)

[Whitey]

As a software engineer I'll tell you why I don't think it's easy to recover from Penguin or some of the other stuff they're now doing. I think they flag your domain when they run they're Penguin software and once you're flagged, that's it, you can't squirm and try to get out of it without manual assistance.

@incrediBILL- I strongly support that plausibility of sites being flagged and put into some categorised penalty "bins". I think Ralph_Slate falls into the category of low priority "brand" on a threshold.

But @fathom - you say that Ralph_Slate was not Penguined. I'm 20/80 - more on the side of Penguin because of the dates.

As my sport went into hibernation for the summer, the impressions dropped even lower, down to around 100,000 to 150,000 per day. Traffic was down by almost 50% from the prior year, though part of this was because the top league of the sport that my site focuses on was on the verge of cancelling their season.

Then, on October 13, bam! The impressions skyrocketed to 450,000. It can be argued that October is the time of the year when my traffic normally picks up, but the increase was too sharp for this to be that kind of increase. It was clearly a recovery.

So when he tidied up his site, and the sports season returned, his direct entry traffic [ and presumably his brand term traffic ], which is a high proportion of visits, picked him up above the "Penguin penalty" threshold.

My primary theory on why I recovered is that my site had a non-typical backlink profile which falsely tripped Penguin, and that on October 13 Google rolled out a fix that corrected their error. My secondary theory (which I hope is not true) is that there is a traffic threshold level for Google's penalties, and that from April to October, due to the seasonality of my sport, my traffic dropped below the threshold and lost its ability to overcome a penaltywhich might still be lurking out there.

@Ralph_Slate - it would be good to hear any further thoughts on that theory. You appear to be an authority in your niche / kind of. Do you pick up a lot of traffic related to your brand name / reputation keywords?

Brands : [webmasterworld.com...]

I'd like to know how much brand played into this, which I sense is a key success element in combination with your other work.

[edited by: Whitey at 2:52 am (utc) on May 4, 2013]

[incrediBILL]

I don't think splitting www and non-www would work as Google tends to mix those together but any other subdomain should potentially be Penguin free but it's just an untested theory at this point easy enough to find the answer if someone wants to give it a go.

[snickles121]

Well,im in the same boat you guys are in and I changed my domain name last year and still can not recover.

However, I think I made a fatal mistake last year when I redirected 4 smaller sites to my new site. One month later my new domain crashed for all results in Google. All pages were redirected to the correct page for the topic. However the new site was only online for 2 months so I dont have enough data confirm this was the cause.

I am ranking in bing and I think I maybe able to rectify the problem in Google if I kill the redirects, but I get tons of referral traffic from the redirects.

Is it possible to block google from accessing the old domains so it does not see the redirects anymore, or is it too late to fix this. I dont want to stop the referral traffic, just block google bot from seeing those links from the redirects.

Hope this makes sense?

[snickles121]

Also I want to add is that when I search up the old domains its showing a copy of the new site under the old domain in search results even though it was redirected a long time ago. All redirect codes are correct and it does redirect when I click on the result.

Please help.......

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

I don't think splitting www and non-www would work as Google tends to mix those together...

Kind of thought that myself but wanted your opinion to see if you had any different thoughts than I did, because it's not something I've heard of being tested, thanks!

[purplekitty]

I'm not sure that anyone this side of google knows when or how often penguin has been run.

Fair enough, but we know that Google hasn't announced that it's been updated since October 2012, so why would anyone assume it has or could have been, and then continue to change his website?

Believe me, I get that sitting here waiting and waiting is frustrating, but I'm not going to make additional changes until I'm sure what I've done hasn't worked. And the only way I'll know that is once the Penguin update is run and I see if I recover or not.

Not to mention, it seems likely that it hasn't been run except for the three times we're aware of hence the reason there's been no recovery for those hit.

[incrediBILL]

Well,im in the same boat you guys are in and I changed my domain name last year and still can not recover

Just changing domain names without attempting to fix anything that potentially caused the problem would be like changing socks without taking antibiotics and wondering why the new socks didn't cure the big infected foot wound.

A new domain of subdomain would only get you away from the flag on your domain, you would still need to make some changes and fix whatever might have caused the problem.

Any keyword stuffing, title stuffing, link madness, etc. would need to be addressed.

Basically, a nice plain vanilla site made for humans and not geared for any type of SEO whatsoever would be where I would start and see what happens, then slowly make SEO changes and not get aggressive about those changes.

I'm finding these days that less is more when it comes to SEO because too much invalidates the whole thing and you're sitting there with a ton of work nobody can find.

[fathom]

The easiest way to "recover" IMO is to move to a new domain,

Cut off the last four words and you got it.

The easiest way to "recover" IMO is to move...

You can stay in current domain.

[snickles121]

Incredibill, I changed domain names but changed layout and had professionals (real pros) rewrite all content. Trust me I knew the old content was bad thats why I rewrote it.

I have a good low bounce rate now and a decent time on site along with many page views from each visitor from the new content.

This rewrite cost a fortune and it was not from five and dime writers.

Im just wondering if the redirects from so many sites is affecting its ability to rank.

For example, if I type in www.oldbadwidgets.com (this would be one of the old domains) its showing up in google results with a cached copy of the new domain home page. Even though when I click on that result it redirects me to my new domain. I checked the redirect code and it gives me a 301.
I redirected this stuff last July/August and it does not seem right to me that its showing up in search results like that.

When I search for my company name everything that mentions my company shows up accept my website. It just doesn't seem right to me and I really hope its just something stupid like I just mentioned.

Any ideas why that might be?

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

I'm finding these days that less is more when it comes to SEO

Did you really say that in a featured home page discussion? Come on now... Really, incrediBILL, WTF are you giving the farm away like that for?


<for incrediBILL's eyes only>

Please, just pretend like it's 2007.

That's what all the "real" SEOs do, because they don't say things like you just did. Really. The "really good ones" still publish aggregated numbers about keyword density over so many pages it must mean something, and the best ones even have their neat little online keyword density analyzers for free!

(I wrote one in 2006 that did stemming and everything, but I'm not as smart as the really good SEOs who'll still tell you more after you sign up for their tools for a fee, cause I stopped using my own years ago even though I wrote it so it was free for all the KWD and writing level info I wanted, but that's not the point right now.)

I don't like to have to be the one to tell you, but what's really important these days is what used to work and what people want to hear, you know? People don't want reality, they want SEO.

SEO is not about telling the truth. It's about saying what people want and expect to hear, alright? Really stop with the "reality BS", please. It's not what people want to hear when it comes to SEO and it's certainly not what they pay all that money for.

People want things like keyword density analysis, because they know it's really important since that's what "everyone" says, so please don't even try to tell people natural writing is better these days, really, that's not what they're looking for or willing to pay extra to get. (Eh, uh, you didn't say that, did you? Sorry, my bad. I didn't mean that.)

* I think the last time I ran a KWD analysis on a page of a site I worked on to actually do something more than laugh or see how ridiculous the recommendations were was late 2007 or maybe early 2008, but that's not the point right now, okay?

Really, IDK WTF you were thinking, but you're gonna go giving the smart ones some ideas and I don't want any more competition than I already have, so STFU! please. Alright? TIA! LMAO! (I think you probably totally get what I'm saying.)

NOTE: Of course if you did take the time to read this and do get what I'm saying, I hope no one else does, because if the community pays attention things could get tougher for me, so if you do understand (whomever you may be) please don't go "spreading it around", because there's no way I made a really sarcastic post in small for a reason. Er, uh, maybe there is, who knows? I could say anything at any time. (See user name for details.)

I hope everyone understands I made this post in small so no one besides incrediBILL will read it, cause there's no way this post is for everyone, really, there isn't ;)

</for incrediBILL's eyes only>

[edited by: TheOptimizationIdiot at 5:37 am (utc) on May 4, 2013]

[fathom]

But @fathom - you say that Ralph_Slate was not Penguined. I'm 20/80 - more on the side of Penguin because of the dates.

I'm not a great impersonator so a little adlib ...

In a Widget world - my website is about widget statistics and I hands down beat everyone for widget statistics on most or all the heavy hitters (which just so happen to have tons of links association with those heavy hitters).

I do exceptionally well for gretzky widgets and all the big name widget stars with and without 'stats' or 'statistics' included in the query. I'm on page #1 for them all.

But there are lots of minor widget leagues and a massive volume of even more obscure "joe smoe" widgets that I use to rank for prior to April 24.

For every gretzky widget there are 100,000 joe smoe widgets and just a single click/day on those joe smoe results (prior to April 24) produced 100,000 that I lost.

That rude fathom guy suggested I have a content problem that I don't have any content related to joe smoe widgets (as if a title and one-liner isn't enough)... that all I got for all of the gretzky widgets big name stars.

That rude fathom says "yes but all those gretzky widgets big name stars also have a ton of link anchors that help the equally limited title and one-liner rank for all those gretzky widgets type phrases and if you indeed had a direct PENGUIN issue you would have likely lost gretzky widgets big name stars first because those actually have LINKS involved where all your losses has ZERO LINKS INCLUDED".

That rude fathom says... "you suffer from trickledown and the logical solution to fix the PENGUIN related problem is to go to all the domains that link to get them to link directly to the joe smoe widgets".

That rude fathom says..."If every joe smoe widget wasn't so obscure and had the exposure those gretzky widgets big name stars had you wouldn't have seen any problem on April 24."

[diberry]

Tedster, thank you for sharing that video. I think so many people have observed the "bouncing after changes" effect that we have to assume some bounce exists due to some factor in the algo. I'm going to operate on that assumption, and it really doesn't make any difference to my plans whether it's that patent or something else. I do think there are better and worse ways to make changes.

If you lost 80% of your traffic you probably lost 80% of your backlinks and you could say you moved 80% back in time when you didn't have as many links, ranks, and all that comes with it as you did when you got nailed.

Actually, I did not lose any backlinks after Penguin. Since then, I've lost a few and gained a few, as one does when one is letting the links happen naturally.

[incrediBILL]

If you didn't like me giving away the farm before, you're gonna hate this dose of reality...

People want things like keyword density analysis

Clients didn't like to hear what I had to say which was look at your analytics reports because running keyword reports is a waste of time, just see which keywords are generating traffic and simply focus on those and maybe not so much on those that don't. Sure, you might like to be on the big keywords, but if you can find 100 other keywords that rank easily then go for the low hanging fruit and fig in hard before someone else notices. Got a great story of how I stomped on some big retailers doing that once, maybe another time. If it ranks and it's not generating traffic then you just wasted a whole bunch of time and money for no reason anyway.

Ranking reports, other than to impress clients, are a waste of time collecting the data IMO and I haven't run one in well over 10 years and have no plans to start either.

However, Google doesn't make it easy to wean yourself off those stupid reports by blocking the query string in the referral.

Chicken, egg, blah.

Back to the main topic, some of my more recent sites which weren't really SEO'd like the old ones which had to use nukes to keep up with the competition, sailed thru Panda and Penguin without a blemish and my newest sites, although not in a highly competitive environment like shoes or clothing, are ranking like crazy right out of the chute and seem to be holding strong. But I'm not giving away that farm :)

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

Clients didn't like to hear what I had to say which was look at your analytics reports because running keyword reports is a waste of time, just see which keywords are generating traffic and simply focus on those and maybe not so much on those that don't.

Seriously, you'd tell someone that? Oh no.

Sure, you might like to be on the big keywords, but if you can find 100 other keywords that rank easily then go for the low hanging fruit and fig in hard before someone else notices.

Low hanging fruit? Uh, that's not what SEOs do. Sorry, "real" SEOs go after the big stuff. It almost sounds like you're saying to do something unique, or way better than everyone else in a niche and take it away from the "spammers" and "dime a dozen" sites... You'd really tell someone that? Wow, that's not SEO at all! Is it?

If you didn't like me giving away the farm before, you're gonna hate this dose of reality...

You're absolutely right. Would you please just retire and stop with reality, because that's not what people want. Really, I've been around long enough to know people want the real SEO information they don't care if reality is different, they want SEO, that's it.

Really, people who want SEO don't want reality, because everyone who wants SEO knows spending $1000s going after "the money terms" is way better SEO than spending a minimal amount and going after the low hanging fruit that generates the same income from less expense, so please, stop trying to feed people your "stuff that works to make more money and rank better overall than the competition" drivel and retire. You're not an SEO any more if you don't think KWD and going after the "money terms" like everyone else does are the most important things.

Really sorry to have to tell you, but you've totally "lost the point" of SEO, it seems, because it's not easy and you have to be super technical and build all kinds of links to make anything at all in this game.

I mean everyone knows there's no way to rank for multiple phrases over a major brand's domain without a ton of links. You can't just put up an EMD for one phrase that ends the search more often than not and expect to rank #1 for a number of phrases related to the EMD for over half a decade without a single update to the site, because that's just not possible.

You need links. EMDs are penalized. The only way to over come the EMD penalization is by building links or redirecting, because if you don't build links you can't possibly rank in the first place and if too many off-site links have the phrase, then you definitely tank, especially if the links are only spammy scrapers.

* Everyone knows the preceding, and I don't really have an EMD for one phrase that's going on 6 years old that's been at #1 for multiple phrases since about a week after launch without a single link, except scrapers and a twitter (nofollowed) link because it ends the search. EMDs are penalized and need to be redirected, and besides, for any site to rank in the first place over all the PageRank the other sites have it needs links. I know, because that's what everyone (including any "real" SEO) will tell you.

And I'm not being at all sarcastic again, alright?
Thanks for understanding.

Glad you got the point of the last one incrediBILL. I hope no one else gets either of them ;)

[edited by: TheOptimizationIdiot at 7:42 am (utc) on May 4, 2013]

[mcneely]

Just my two cents if I may --

Before Penguin, I had two screamin' demons .. two sites that listed very well for a very long time (since around 2004) .. they blew thru the likes of Florida and other updates without so much as getting a speck of dust on them .. After Penguin, both are on life support .. limping along like a couple of whupped-up-pups. The PR is still there, but the SERPs suck with the biggest lips I've ever seen for the both of them.

I've launched 3 since the Penguin, 3 new domains, all with similar content, style and builds that the old ones had .. New ip's and servers .. Two of them are actually doing better now than the other two did before Penguin -- Two of them have actually gotten a bit of PR too. (I've dumbed down, or otherwise simplified the content on the new sites however with an eye toward the casual reader/visitor)

I've decided to let the other two pre-Penguin limp-alongs languish for just a while longer before I park them to die a peaceful death --

[edited by: mcneely at 7:30 am (utc) on May 4, 2013]

[fathom]

Just changing domain names without attempting to fix anything that potentially caused the problem would be like changing socks without taking antibiotics and wondering why the new socks didn't cure the big infected foot wound.

A new domain of subdomain would only get you away from the flag on your domain, you would still need to make some changes and fix whatever might have caused the problem.

Any keyword stuffing, title stuffing, link madness, etc. would need to be addressed.

Basically, a nice plain vanilla site made for humans and not geared for any type of SEO whatsoever would be where I would start and see what happens, then slowly make SEO changes and not get aggressive about those changes.

I'm finding these days that less is more when it comes to SEO because too much invalidates the whole thing and you're sitting there with a ton of work nobody can find.

Absolutely!

No one claimed is was easy to recover you really have to put some serious brain cells to work on all the issues involved. Just because link & link anchors drive to the forefront of the common issues not every DIY is capable of analyzing everything involved.

Actually, I did not lose any backlinks after Penguin. Since then, I've lost a few and gained a few, as one does when one is letting the links happen naturally.

"Lose" implied the loss of link juice asssociated with the links that are obviously still there.

[incrediBILL]

I've launched 3 since the Penguin, 3 new domains, all with similar content, style and builds that the old ones had .. New ip's and servers .. Two of them are actually doing better now than the other two did before Penguin -- Two of them have actually gotten a bit of PR too. (I've dumbed down, or otherwise simplified the content on the new sites however with an eye toward the casual reader/visitor)

Doesn't mean another Penguin update won't hammer them all but my newer sites also flew thru Penguin too, not a scratch on 'em.

Had a big site hammered by Panda but what happened to it is more to do with how they're handling local sites in the SERPs now and when that aspect goes wider to more niches we'll hear some real screaming on the web when nobody is able to rank for anything local except actual sites that register in Google places. Not that it matters but the same site still dominates in Bing, not that anybody uses Bing.

Just waiting for the shoe to drop...