The latest Google penalty...

Not sure I agree here I see where your thought process is coming from but I think when sites are part of a deindexed network they lose rankings as they have just lost a load of high PR links disaster. I have seen sites recover from this by getting more links but I am yet to hear of anyone getting a WMT notification about unnatural linking.

The problem is with some people who joint the networks is they have very few links already going to them or are thin so when and if a network dies them it hits them a lot worse. Not saying this is the case for any sites of yours but this is something I have seen and people blaming the network, even when it is still 100% indexed. Clearly these are algo updates that are hitting thier poor site?

Not sure I'm on your page either. The only way I can see them penalizing you for links is if they can track the IP of where the links were posted from and track it back to you. I do hear your concerns, though, & I tend to stay with the safer ones as well.

I disagree. Only people that don't stick to the basics and don't give Google what it wants don't make it.
Just give them highly relevant content and you won't have any problems ranking.

No offense, but I believe I remember what network you were affiliated with. That network was horrible. It left a gigantic easily identifiable footprint. They were constantly overreaching on keywords they should have stayed away from to protect their network, and more importantly their clients.

This let search engines quickly identify sites in their network and deindex half the network or more at a time.

So what happened to anyone belonging to that network, does not necessarily apply to what may happen to other networks.

I've been reading a lot about this today, a new "deindexed" penalty. It seems a little strange that BMR suddenly closed their membership just as this came out. I guess only time will tell.

SEO LinkVine Elite got hit.

Seems it was the blog network sites with tons of outbound links on homepage.

Anyone else using SEOLV Elite?

I am not 100% sure yet, but I think people are getting penalized for being part of a homepage network that gets deindexed. Penalty doesn't seem to target blog posts/articles/text links, but more is looking for single pages with the same outgoing links on the page. Essentially it is a Copyscape check for links on a page. Not sure how long the penalty is going to last, but it appears this may be the new anti-seo tactic. Just like how you can destroy your competitors sites with blog comment and profile link spam attacks.

Usually the penalty has been for entire site, but in some examples it has just been the keyword that was on the network.

It is not negative link velocity like the forum profile/blog comment spam. This is new. This happens only when sites are deindexed. NOT if you subscribe to a network and the unsubscribe and your links are removed.

Because I've been able to compare over 250 sites and have forced link building on to the sites which I believe to be penalized and have seen no effect or a negative impact from link building.

Yes, I've checked other people on the networks and saw that they were also penalized. This is true for more than just one network.

There are no tests that you can run online that will tell you if you are penalized, all of those are a joke. You need to do testing independently and none of those tests that are out there will even be new enough to pick up this penalty if they did work.

They got rid of two of my sites. And not because "I didn't follow the rules" or posted crappy content. I posted relevant content, yet I was taken off of Google. I quit SEO. It is too stressful to have hours of work vanished just like that.

I cannot agree with this, Google is not stupid and they care .. there is no reason for your competitors to subscribe to blog network and increase your ranking .. this blog network things are absolutely done by someone who wants to improve your ranking not to damage it. And this cannot be considered as penalty ( but for the blog network itself )

I came across this thread coz I found one of my comparators ranking dropped -26 so I thought it is just manual Google penalty but seems as you said it's the blog network being deindexed .. but I still don't know how you got this information .. Did Google announced that somewhere ?

What other blog networks affected and what remains safe until now.
Thanks

Should I bring my tomato plants in? Just in case?

Seriously, Google is trying hard to destroy "some" business and SEO is just their major target - nothing new, really.

But keep in mind you'll be running in circles, cause next time "blog posts" or "web 2.0 link drop" might me considered "spam"...

Just sayin'.

The company that runs one of the services I write about has been doing a lot of blog spamming lately.

The crazy thing is the comments are all junk and the footprint must be very obvious. They've also done some gigantic damage to their brand amongst the blogging community.

I'll keep my head down, do practically no link building and wait for Google to deindex my competition.

Can anyone else confirm this?

I think it is more likely for these sites to lose rank because a few of their links were discredited. If you lose 5 PR5-6 backlinks, that might cause a disturbance don't you think?

I'm tired of seeing all these penalty threads, I know it sucks, but not everything is a penalty. Just because a site has a link to someone else and site A gets punished, doesn't mean site B will be punished. Although, because of site A being punished, site B no longer gets that link juice, which may be a bigger factor than people realize.

I have been in several HIGH PR Homepage networks and they have gotten deindexed. I always know because my rankings plummet since the links no longer count. However, as soon as I get into an indexed network they go right back to where they were. People are so quick to assume its a penalty when in reality it's just because those links no longer count.

This is such a good discussion. yeah right Google keeps on updating more and more recently. Of course that's the only way how they can manage or maintain their SE properly.

Well, I still believe that having a links on these high PR sites/blogs are still effective as long as you have check the website if the content appropriate to their category & just simply link mostly to your related website... of course original articles comes first!

To fernando Veloso

I also think about that and it is really possible. Well the secret is, we must keep ourselves updated in any changes of SE.

My backlinks have gotten deindexed by using BMR. But for some odd reason my pages are either staying at their ranks, or moving up slowly.

Update:

This just in, one of my keywords that was rank 2, is now RANK 1, page 1.
And this is STRICTLY using BMR ONLY. The keyword itself is competitive + 1,000 local monthly.
On top of that, this keyword got flagged from rank 1 to rank 7 because of the algorithm change (above the folds/spammy) a month ago.

Honestly I cannot agree more with the post above. One does not know the pain of a Google penalty till it happens. Really avoid paid links and if you must try and be wise in getting them from places that look natural and probably avoid site wide links. Getting a link inside a list is an idea I am toying with.

If so ,what conditions that bad SEO has? I think I should warry about that.
Anyway thanks.

Some of my sites dropped ranking also, I am not sure either its because of Article Samurai or Seo link Monster.I used both services in the past.

It seems what Google cares now is to get rid of people who are trying to rank in their search engines and make money out of their traffic. They don't bother if you have quality and unique content on your site anymore. If you have built contextual links using blog networks and other networks with spun content used, Google seems to be able to track them effectively and put your site out of the game. I checked my keyword and found some sites that rank on top are now some old established and quality sites but with quite a lot of outdated content.