A WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster who claims that the Panda 2.5.2 update which happened around October 14th was more about Google's link algorithm being a bit buggy.
The niche he follows, he noticed a site jump to the top spot but couldn't figure out why. The site only had site wide links from very poor sites and didn't have any solid quality links to warrant the increase. He said:
Moreover, it looks like these are the ONLY backlinks that Site has. I said to myself - "well, google must be ignoring these links" and I spent a lot of time with Yahoo Explorer, Open Site Explorer and Majestic, to find that hidden powerful link that gives the Site its superb rankings. I couldn't find any.
For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why the site jumped up. He added,
I am wondering, what the hell is going on with the Google's paid links detection algo? Or with the backlink relevancy factor, that factor alone should be enough to send the Site far down where it deserves to be?
Several other webmasters chimed in saying they "noticed the same," adding "relatively new sites that have bought 100s of cheap backlinks in spammy directories seem to be doing quite well for certain terms at the moment."
Maybe the October 14th update was not about Panda and was more about links? Or maybe they are completely separate.
Did you notice sites with low quality or spammy links recently start doing really well?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
