Despite it being the month of December, which normally means it is slow, it was a pretty busy month. The past week or so has been dead, so not much to report in the first week of January, but in terms of Google news related to webmasters – the past 30-days or so were wild.
Google deployed their authorship reduction this month. We spotted two other shifts in rankings that Google denied. Google did penalize Anglo Rank and Backlinks.com‘s link networks – while giving a ten-day penalty to Rap Genius for unnatural links.
Google’s Matt Cutts promised an authority algorithm soon, while accidentally pushing out a PageRank update. He also promised to break the spirits of black hat spammers.
Plus so much more! See the topics below for hand picked topics that I felt are the most important Google-webmaster related stories for the month. Also, check out the December post.
Updated: Did The Authorship Reduction In Google Begin? Yes.
Google December 19th Ranking Fluctuations Reported
Did Google Soften The EMD Algorithm?
Matt Cutts: Google Tries To Minimize Search Updates Before Holidays
Google Continues Work On Promoting Topic Authorities
Google Shocks Webmasters By Updating Toolbar PageRank Before Year End
Backlinks.com: The Next Link Network Penalized By Google
Google’s Matt Cutts Calls Out Nailing Another Link Network
Google Penalty Notifications Sent To Anglo Rank Link Buyers
Anglo Rank Promises To Rebuild After Google Link Penalty
Rap Genius’ Link Scheme Goes Public Leading To Google Penalty
Rap Genius Back After 10-Day Penalty
Google’s Matt Cutts: Our Algorithms Try To Break Black Hat SEOs Spirits
Matt Cutts: Google’s Hummingbird Algorithm Affects 90% Of Searches
Google: You Must Wait A Few Weeks To Submit A Reconsideration Requests
Google’s Matt Cutts Tells Webmaster The Penguin Algorithm Is Impacting Rankings
Google Sharing More About What Their Algorithms Think
PlugRush Adult Ad Network Might Harm Your Google Rankings
Google’s Matt Cutts Agrees, Guest Blogging Is Getting Out Of Hand
Google Structured Data Dashboard Adds Error Reports
Link Spammers Beat Yandex, Forcing Yandex to Change Algorithm
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
