Here is what I found interesting in my experiment: Background: I have created 11 sites in late June using articles from a article membership site and use various link building strategies to "promote" them. For each group, articles are used i) directly, ii) Use website content wizard + article manager to create unique + readable article iii) simply use the "word replace" + a few keyword stuffing to create useless articles. Link building strategy: Group A) 4 sites: 2X (i) 1X(ii) 1X(iii) Link Building: I just submit is to numerous paid directories with high page pr + I bought a few "cheap high pr link" (not link farm, but hopefully you know what I mean) Group B) 1i, 1ii 2 of them using article directory + 500 free directories submission Group C) 1i, 1ii "Link spamming" - to bookmarking site + a few .gov "link farm" Group D) 3i, 1ii Method used in Group A) + SEO elite to find quality backlinks from my competitor + quality link exchange + buy link on DP from "quality site" Results: Group Ai, Aiii is doing very well (a little better than Group D) at the beginning, but a few days ago they're gone nowhere in Google (fully indexed but traffic drops from 150-300 unique a day to 10-20. Group B: Too little traffic and sites are still not fully indexed. The good news is, it helps to get your site indexed. Group C works pretty well. I paid nothing for the link building but google bring some steady traffic to my site. Best ROI so far. Probably because my membership only limit 200 people getting the same articles, when the time I am posting the articles to my site, only 2-3 other sites were found on Copyscape, so i) works pretty well, and I can't tell any difference from i and ii. iii) is doing very well as you can create a lot more pages instantly, but it seems that google is able to identify those sites. iii got quite a lot of traffic at the beginning, but they go nowhere in google after a month even though they are still fully indexed. It seems to me that even if you are using paid directories (all from related theme search in google by allsubmitter), you still have the chance to "go nowhere". My thought is that if you are using the "traditional method" to build like without having a few "high quality" (not just high pr) authority link, there is a chance for losing your SERP. I already have 2 sites using iii) got no where in google, so I think it is also another reason to have your site gone nowhere. Since there is only 11 sites in this network, I can't really tell if it is really the link building or content (what other factors do we have?) that cause the drop in SERP. Please share your experience here if your sites encounter sudden drop in SERP. P.S. I don't know if it is a "google dance" because I haven't keep track of the keyword. Probably we can tell if it is a real "penalty" from Google when we observe it for a few more months.
nice observation, but still my site went up on SERPs when i continued link building although at the same time, my content is also updating. Also posting on forums and gathering lots of quality one way link helps. My conclusion is, get quality backlinks and make your content fresh as much as possible.