I just saw the competition for the main kewords of one of my blogs increase by 300%+ in two days, I'm still nr. 1 though (oddly, no backlinks except maybe 3 nofollow blog ones lol). From 296k-900k+ results now, weird right?

happens ALL the time. Its impossible to make a statement by a momentary observation. Sometimes sites bounce for weeks, this is normal. Maybe its a coming PR update. I had sites disappearing completely just to re-appear after a few weeks.

The changes probably be due to GoogleDance or due to different data centers. If the change persists then it might be you are losing your ranking and you need to do a bit more off page SEO and get some more backlinks

what exactly is the definition of a 'google slap'? How long does it last for, what happens?

Well I went from ranking number two today and number 9 for my main keywords on two of my sites and now im ranking in the hundreds. So sounds like they changed something in the last 24 hours cause most of my sites are not ranking like they used to out of the 27 I have. Hope this is not a stuck position because thats a ton of work down the drain.

Yeah, my site is a relatively old site. Like many sites it was slapped way back when I started it after doing a directory submission, then it came back a few months later and has been strong ever since. I'm not being beet by the competition as my links are much stronger. The only thing I can think is that I had some hi PR links publish, but I've done this many times before for several sites and not had this problem. This site was a 5 figures a month money maker for me. Really hope it comes back. I've never has a site drop back like this twice. Once it happens in the early days, they always run pretty consistent for me. Anyone else experiencing weirdness? or is this just me?

"Google slap" actually applies to Adwords advertisers that are Slapped by google for having landing pages with poor content and that are not relevant to the keywords they are bidding. They PPC cost for those keywords could go up from 5 c to $10 per click..That's the Google Slap...Ouch !!!!!!

Totally correct Sam, sorry I was speaking too loosely when I said slap. I just meant when there is a change to Google's algorithm, or Google's filters decide that there is an unnatural pattern in your link building and you get "slapped" from the first page, way back to the 5th, 6th or worse page. But you're correct with the actual definition. Just clearing up what I meant.

I've noticed traffic and rank shifting on several sites too, and yesterday every Google tool I tried (including search) wouldn't load for a few hours. I suspect they're making massive changes to various things.

One site I've been working hard on is going strong though. I've been working on a phrase which is pretty competitive (18.7 million results with quotes, 28.4 M without) and found myself on the radar at page 7 a week or two ago - without quotes. This morning I've moved up to page 5 so I'm happy

My google rank has remained consistent however my yahoo took a serious dive today. Went from position 2 to who knows where. I have never concentrated much on yahoo since it's normally running parallel to my google position, but today it up and disappeared. Strange, that's the first time that has ever happened to me. Things that make you go hmmm....

Not sure whats going on. It could be just that my site is in the sandbox but I thought I already went through that. I think google has done some changes cause I am noticing the top 10 for my top money sites have changed a lot. So either google is changing its look at certain types of backlinks or its added something new and time will only tell if we come back out of the pits. Just hope it doesnt last two long so I can pay the bills lol.

Friday mess as usual. All my top ranking sites (3 years plus, trusted sites, original and relevant content) went all of them to page 6 in October 2008.

And yep, they were replaced by mediocre sites, blogger (spam) blogs etc etc

So, everynow and then a bunch of good sites get filtered to page 6.

Why? Don't know and really don't understand. A friend of mine provided my urls to some google webmasters groups i think and even they can't understand what happened.

Johnny, Hope your sites get back up soon.

Has anyone ever seen where you main domain does not rank for anything anymore but the inner pages do in google? My main domain is no longer listed in google. Went from number 8 to nothing over night. But from some reason the pages to the site still rank in google which doesnt make sense to me. Any ideas why? When you got sandboxed did your site drop off the map totally or just down several pages? This is the first I have seen it drop this far.

Focus on long-term fundamentals and SEO will be a lot less painful for you. As long as you're building quality backlinks and you have valuable content on your site, SEO works like a charm all the time, regardless of today's algorithm changes. Sure, you rankings and traffic oscillates, but SEO is an "averages" business. Numbers mean nothing until they're averaged over a period of months. Stick to a solid gameplan and you'll be alright.

Oh, and marketing affiliate marketing is not a solid gameplan -- that's the surest way to failure.

I hear you. My site is relatively old, already went through the sandbox process over a year ago. I'm not an affiliate and am the main retailer of a reputable product within my niche. I've been buying high PR links from a reputable source. That's the only question mark, but I've been doing this for a while for multiple sites, with no known negative effects. It seems to be bouncing around a bit. My site was at #2 for quite some time, then suddenly yesterday went to page 5, then 6, then 7, then back to 5 today. There is nothing spammy about the site. All original content.

Such a bummer, really hope it comes back.