Last Wednesday Google released the spam algorithm to target very spammy niches and "illegal" link building and spamming techniques. Did it work?
For the most part, it seems it did. Despite some black hats mocking Matt Cutts, it seems most of the black hatters in that niche are complaining and admitting defeat.
A BlackHatWorld thread has several saying they are hit by this update. Here are some quote.
Seems Matt cutts has been true to his words... first page which was once full of "black hat methods" ranked sites for "payday loans" is now pretty much cleared up...i managed to rank 2nd and 8th on page one a few days ago, i lasted 8 hours, then was totally sandboxed...
Others explained that while whatever was working in the past, they will have to adapt to get their sites to work in the future.
Not dead at all.Will just take longer than a few hours this time round.
The question also being asked in the thread is what other keyword phrases impacted by this update. It is not just payday loans, it is likely pornographic terms, casino terms and others.
As a side note, there is another thread started the same say as the payday update, where SAPE link users are claiming they were hit. Not all, but many. Maybe they were in those spammy niches? Wasn't SAPE links penalized? Yea but I guess maybe not all of those links?
So while some blackhats may give up, the good ones won't.
Forum discussion at BlackHatWorld.
