I dropped three ranks today. I dont usually mind losing my rank unless it is a huge drop. But I lost my rank position to a blog about my wallpapers keyword, another blog(blogspot) with only two wallpapers but huge content text, and a competitor on this site -____-. The competitor I dont mind, but two blogs that have no or hardly any wallpapers? I mean really cmon.
Google constantly devaluate some links: directories, squidoo lens, etc but that doesn't mean that Google don't give importance to backlinks, I think you're totally wrong. If the link technique that you use on your 2-3 experiments now doesn't work anymore, depends on which linking strategy you use: guestbooks ? forums? buy links? blog comments ? social bookmarking ? Your experiment doesn't prove anything and you can't assure that Google don't give important to backlinks only for 2-3 test, 2,000 - 3,000 tests and see the same pattern can be consider significant, not 2-3... too paranoic...
Not surprising... people abuse this / do it excessively. Having 100% of your backlinks say "buy viagra" (or whatever your search keyphrase is) is most likely an attempt to manipulate the SERPs. I'm guessing they clamp the effect so that natural linking to sites isn't affected.
Backlinks and good, varied anchor text are still important. I suspect however that if you rank well due to lots of good links with anchor text matching keywords but people still don't click on your site when you appear in the SERPs you start to fall down the ranks. So you might rank well to begin with but then fall back after a few weeks. I don't think this is an algo change, it's just what Google's been doing for ages.
Yup....my site has lost its rankings too. Keywords which it was previously ranking number 1 for are no more there...
i don't think your experiment using one page with no content on it is really conclusive. new pages can still be made to rank without having the words on them using both internal and external links with the right anchor text, but its then fairly standard for Google to work it out and kill the rankings 2-6 weeks down the line. moving from what is basically their anti google bombing feature at work to "anchor text doesn't work anymore" is way too big a step IMO
my sitye is tenth in the google.com and it is sixth(what it original was) in the google.ca I also rank forth in google.co.uk But my domain ends in co.uk Is there a stat tracking program that can tell you which google extension you are getting traffic from?
I have a few sites that are only supported by links from directories. One site for a specific keyword ranks #43 out of 46,000,000 results - I would say backlinks still are king.
I don't think we can make an assumption based on one person's experience. It just goes to show though that good page content as well as link building is important for a good SERPS listing
Guest Books = SPAM Forums = SPAM Buy Links = Black Hat Blog Comments = SPAM Social Bookmarking = Its quite ok My Method: Social Bookmarkings (dofollow), Some links over my personal network of websites on diff IP ... (note: all wesites were about the same niche) This experiment was not based on spam backlinks. I'm not the only one noticed something like that, there are many industry geeks claiming same things. BTW: time will tell this I just kept my view.. m not forcing u to agree me .. m just asking personal opinion over this issue if u have seen some changes or not !!
The moral of the story... as JohnSON said in this forum... "As everything in SEO, nothing is a guarantee."
In future when spamer give precedence to Social Bookmarking or another thing, Google will devalue it.