I left a "this isn't true" comment on the original thread but I think the comment will need moderator approval.
Then you followed that statement up by saying that the title isn't true.
While I most definitely appreciate you weighing in on the issue, I feel you would better serve readers by explaining whether the initial statement, the title, or both are inaccurate.
Are you saying email reputation wasn't the reason his site was penalized, that he didn't have a tip from a Google employee, or that email reputation doesn't factor into the search rankings?
This is not even remotely valid reasoning.
He weighed in on one part of your article because he's in a special position to know whether or not it's true. Choosing not to weigh in on the rest of the article says nothing about his opinion of the rest of it.
If the article is untrue, put it in writing. "Matt Cutts says Google doesn't use email as an indicator in search rankings" would kill the story.
You haven't said that, so it leaves me to believe that the article is true. And it is only the method of discovery you dislike.
To be honest, I'm surprised we got this kind of response from Google at all. They generally don't weigh in on SEO theory.
Maybe you are too young to remember the Matt Cutts "use no follow on internal links" debacle where he said that was a good idea.
I read the response from Google as Matt's annoyed a minion said something they shouldn't have, and Google's caught with their pants down on what is a pretty scary thought. "Google Reads Your Email And Does Scary S___ With It"
http://www.xyhd.tv/2011/05/industry-news/search-engine-optim...
"[0044] References to the blog document by other sources may be a positive indication of the quality of the blog document. For example, content of emails or chat transcripts can contain URLs of blog documents. Email or chat discussions that include references to the blog document is a positive indicator of the quality of the blog document."
Andriy Bihun, the first name on the patent, is still a Google software engineer according to LinkedIn.
Not sure who's out of touch here. Is Google really experimenting with people's businesses and jobs, or are they experimenting with their own service on which people have, perhaps foolishly, bet their businesses and jobs?
If their changes are pissing off one segment of their users it may be because they are trying to please another, more profitable, segment of their users.
If their changes are pissing off one segment of their users it may be because they are trying to please another, more profitable, segment of their users.[/i]
Fine, all Google has to say is "we will use arbitrary ways of ranking and will support more those that $upport us with adwords" not spew nonsense.
P.S. With 70% market share Google is a monopoly and totally different rules apply.
an *italicized* word, or *more than one*.
It's been said before, but I just wanted to say thanks again for coming into HN and sharing some perspective. It's very cool and insightful and appreciated.
Surely that points a crucial flaw in the system, how can you manually penalize a site and not put any tests in place that would let you know when the reasons for the penalization have been removed.
If Jake hadn't filed a reconsideration request he would have continued to be "trusted less" by Google thus presumably receiving less traffic.
Google should create a simple algorithm that would alert the webspam team who I presume take the manual action on websites that the reason for penalty has been removed and they should take another manual look at it.
As I see it the only reason Jake was informed of such penalization is because he filed a recon request, what about the thousands of other websites who inadvertently had bad links or another reason for penalization on the site and didn't sport the traffic dip and didn't file a request.
Maybe I'm wrong, Matt, do Google have these stops/tests/algorithms in place to stop incorrect penalization?