Why Does Google Do it?

[baldidiot]

All valid comments, but don't forget another dominant factor making it harder for gambling affiliates is the algo now really helps brands. By brands I mean operators, who I notice are taking certain keyword positions that once only affiliate sites had.

It's also been helping out the super-affiliate brands - just look at oddschecker, those guys cleaned up on the last update.

As for the OP's point... Google is always trying to improve their search results, which means fiddling with the nobs - they don't think about how that affects webmasters as that's not their remit. Their job is to return the best/most accurate results for a users search, not provide traffic to certain sites.

But the nobs can go the other way too and send your site to the top of the search results overnight. For me, the best thing I ever did was distribute my risk across multiple sites - do different things on each (eg: some with heavy/risky link building, some with conservative lb, some with no paid links, some updated daily, others hundreds of pages of static 'evergreen' content).

These days I find after an update my net traffic gain/loss is about zero - some go up, some go down. If you do the same thing on all your sites the you're at googles mercy...

[justbookies]

Google also has the ability to manually mark a site as an authority site. Oddschecker have been cleaning up long before recent updates and I would suggest they have been given this important manual boost by google.

[baldidiot]

Google also has the ability to manually mark a site as an authority site. Oddschecker have been cleaning up long before recent updates and I would suggest they have been given this important manual boost by google.

Didn't know that. Wonder who we can bribe at google to get that done

[justbookies]

Didn't know that. Wonder who we can bribe at google to get that done

Yes I know it sounds unlikely, but I read an old in-house google manual to the people who were to do this and mark sites as authority sites (among other things). It was some manual that leaked out on to the internet and I found via some seo article. I thought it might give me some inside info on seo and that point was the most interesting thing in it.

[alberto85]

In my opinion the main reason this happens is that people want to rank in the SEPRs and they want it immediately! yes you're building links fast, sometimes with spam, sometimes using too many exact mach KW and then you're getting in penguin's view and bammm! you're down again
My advice: if you want some steady position then don't hurry to get in the top positions!

[TheWaiter]

If you moved up and down then it's the Google Dance but I think what's happening in this case is the honeymoon period, meaning google gives you the benefit of the doubt on your SEO work, if it's dropped from top to bottom then your SEO may be blackhat or grey hat. I get movement on some of my sites but it's normally two or three places and once they are at the top I only see one or two movements in positions but usually come back after some minor work.

[Smith John]

Google is one of the most active search engine among all the search engine and always take care of its user in that way it look for the best method to provider the best service to its user that is why it frequently changes its algorithm for better search result, if the particular site has good ranking according to its previous algorithm, it is not always the case it remain after change of algorithm also so only thing you need to do is to keep the site updated with change in its algorithm according to its algorithm otherwise it will affect your ranking anyhow.

[diggdirectory]

it happens because of new data update and algorithm changes

[EdBet]

Google ... and always take care of its user in that way it look for the best method to provider the best service to its user that is why it frequently changes its algorithm for better search result...

You kidding right?

[Slottero]

Google says Happy New Year...