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Christyb: the problem with "proven seo techniques" is that if you combine enough of the in one place, you can create dominating pages that have little or nothing to do with terms searched. People are then turning those searches around and moving them to other PPC engines, and away you go.
Overuse of seo techniques, no matter how accepted those techniques are on an individual cases basis will sooner or later result in what you are seeing: the SE people freaking out and taking some very harsh action to quell the problem.
One of the things that makes me laugh a bit is that many of the threads (including some of the posts in this one) suggest that Google somehow might owe someone a good listing because they decoded the methods used by Google. Doesn't anyone realize that this is EXACTLY what Google is trying to avoid? they want to give good results for real sites, not bad results for good SEO techniques.
Remember also the great theory of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy(paraphrased): When the answer to life, the universe, and everything is figured out, the entire universe is replaced with something even more complicated and fiendish. It is said that this has happened a number of times already.
Once the Google math is figured out, and clearly it has been, the whole system gets chucked out the window and replaced.
I hope people are out there madly trying to optimize for this, because I am sure that the next update will be even more fucked up, and the heavy SEO people will probably once again be less than pleased.
Alex
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