In an interesting article yesterday in the Irish Independent, it noted how so many websites have been ‘hamstrung’ by the latest Google algorithm change, affectionately known as ‘penguin’. In this change the search engine specifically targeted websites that ‘gamed’ the engines in the past and got decent results on the back of it. The way they managed to get these inflated rankings was through a range of nefarious methods: Keyword spamming, backdoor pages, link spam – to mention but a few.
The Google Webmaster Forum is now chock-a-block with website owners complaining that their sites have all but disappeared in the engines since the update. Why? Because their sites contravened Google’s quality guidelines and they were penalised for this. Do I shed a tear? No.
If you are going to link spam, literally filling forums, and normally forums that have nothing to do with your industry/business, with links to your site using the exact same key phrase – then there is going to be some payback!
And some news sites mention that it really only hit small businesses: then they are the people that have not being paying attention – or perhaps have let someone take over their ‘SEO’, in this case was simply link spamming!
You can get all the quality guidelines here or, make life easier for yourself and go through this pdf and assess your own site. It is genuinely no rocked science, its logic.
