I haven't noticed any changes from blog comment links. Most appear to be 'nofollowed' in one method or another anyway.

I was under the impression that the algo was changed on january 26th.. yesterday i had higher than usually impressions and visitors (about 10%) it could be an anaomally or things might have changed.

No changes for me yet, but my main site did jump 30 places for its top keyword (very competitive) so that might be something.

Do you have a link to an article or an official announcement about this? Thanks.

I said this before a couple times: it looks PT Google is some sort of "crash test dummy" and usually I see some trends over here that get reflected a couple weeks/months later in G.com.

Said that, as I type, our network sites that NEVER got any "special automated help" are ranking higher then ever - they really got a tremendous push.

On the other side, sites are ranking normally.

I'll check next weeks if there is another local change.

yep, some of my site's sank while other sites rose up...hasn't affected me much thou....just a few positions lower...nothing some decent links cant fix

i have noticed it and it's like a bad news for all the people who were doing it . let's look forward and see what happens .

I've been watching certain sites (not mine!) that reached #1 google through comment spam (identical comment body) and forum (profile page link, garbage username) spam. I just checked, yup they are still #1... 3 years and going strong.

Sites in question were experimental sites that rank for completely obscure keyphrases - and they're spammy as heck. They don't have any competitors trying to take them down, so its instructive... I'm watching them like canaries in coal mines

So I'd say it's more likely webmasters filed a spam complaint. It's kinda stupid to post junk comments on others' sites, it annoys them. But even more it gives your competitors a way to get rid of you overnight, all they have to do is tattle tale and you're gone.

Also, rankings always move around. A site that links to you might delete the page, or lose link juice, new links might get found, etc.

One thing I am seeing though very recently, a number of sites in the top 10 serps that have really crap link profiles compared to the other sites in the top 10. I'm like "huh? what is that friggin' yelp page doing ranking #6 for a massive keyword like 'diamond'... in amongst pages with 1000's of inbound links... with only 4 links to it from other domains???"

Seems G is maybe working on including some sites for reasons other than their link profile. Hmm... yelp page in question is for a diamond store in SF, in other words local to me. I think google is mixing up the top 10 - not just including top ranking sites but also a few local results, as well as the images and shopping ones we all know about. A.

Many People are seeing the change n there is certainly a big algo change as many people are shouting.. There is a big thread going just about this Issue : Read here : Lower Ranking ?

Seems like its still the same for me aswell. Ill post here though if anything changes.

Say if you build forum profile links manually? Are you still penalized etc?

I don't see any difference between manually building forum links or using Xrumer for a blast. They are all still indexed over a few months or so.

How can big G tell the difference between a forum profile done manually or an automated blast by say Xrumer?