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Originally Posted by signupdamnit
I've been making money from them but the thing is it hasn't been my own sites. (I'm not saying anything more) It's ridiculous how some of their own properties completely take over page 1 for certain phrases. I don;t mean just #1 or #2 but #1 - #10 save for maybe one listing.
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Yeah, this has been getting egregious for many search terms - it's their own platform and they can promote their own properties or others they have relationships with ("Authority Sites"), but it's actually leading to irrelevant and low-quality search results especially within adult. Also Google of all companies complaining about sites scraping content (not that I condone it myself)... well what can you say there!
The other issue is just how volatile some placements are. I've seen quality well-aged sites fall from top-5 target keyword rankings to buried pages & pages deep overnight, with no major changes to content or links. Then a week or two later they're back near their original spot or somewhere in between. Then back down again. Rinse & repeat. This is just a week to week thing, not unique to their major updates.
Adrian's correct that quality links are still a factor, but overall webmaster control of placement has plummeted the past year or two and the ROI of SEO has gone down accordingly.