This last algorithm update from Google has certainly raised a lot of flags with various websites. Their continual filtering of paid links, sold links, duplicate content and the other thousand rules they’re made up in an attempt to maintain “quality control”. They’re causing some real headaches for some legitimate webmasters out there even the best of them. There was a time where SEO’s could maybe take a few risks here and there, but now Google’s seriously cracking down on all sites and Matt Cutts has already warned everyone.

A recent post on Digital Point exposes a few more loop hole that even Google hasn’t ironed out and apparently its been kept secret for quite some time. I found an extremely interesting article on Proxy hacking, something even my blackhat mind wouldn’t of thought up. The article will explain everything thoroughly, but basically proxy sites are being indexed instead of the real sites. Poor Brad Fallon was a victim of these, someone I’ve looked up to and learnt a whole heap from.

I then came across another recent article through WebProNews, analysing whether Google is starting to ban major directories. Some have already been banned including:

-Aviva
-Alive
-Big Web Links
-ewebpages
-Directory Dump
-Elegant Directory
-Biz-Dir

Experts say don’t panic, its just Google dancing. But I’d be panicking if one of my sites got banned (and its happened before). How can you not panic? I’ve even seen one of my company sites banned (can’t mention which site but it was fairly big). So what can we all do about this? We have no choice but to follow all search engines guidelines, not just google. Reoptimize your site and submit it for reconsideration if you have been banned. Wait patiently cause it will take them forever to respond. I don’t know what the success rate is but this will be a lesson learnt for most webmasters. Its obviously bad if it has happened to you, but look at this on a positive note. The real focus for search engines is to provide the best qualified results according to what keywords are typed in. No one can be perfect, not even Google.