I'm sure you all have heard of the Penguin algorithm that Google pushed out recently. It's been the big thing, along with it's cousin Panda, in the SEO world.

With all the talk of Penguin and Panda there's been a lot of speculation but the general consensus has been that the Penguin update was all about backlinks..but was it really?

I'm not claiming to know but from what I've seen out there, neither does all the so called "SEO experts" it's all speculation. Google knows (well at least I hope they do..never know the Googlebot might have a mind of its own by now).

So, lets say you've been hit with a bunch of spammy links. Your site subsequently gets demoted in the rankings. Now, is it that the spammy links is the reason you got demoted? Or was it that the spammy links were the reason you were promoted to begin with?

Let me kind of give you an example. Say I have site A. I made the site in 2002 and all was good because the niche (like many back then) were about empty. Now, in 2012, the niche (like many are now) is very congested. So sometime ago, I received an influx of low quality links. As the niche got more congested, I retained my rankings because these links had lifted me up.

Fast forward and the penguin strikes. My site has dropped..fast! SEO experts all around are saying its because I got bad back links. Well, is it true? My theory is yes and no. My site was never good enough to be high ranking anyway..but these links gave me extra boost. Now that those spammy sites no longer give me a boost my site has lowered to my rightful ranking. It's not that it negatively impacted my site but that they no longer positively affect my site.

Of course this is all speculation but there are a few things that I know for sure. Google aims to take out spammy content, both Panda and Penguin targeted this. They aim to provide good content so that their users don't jump ship. Google isn't stupid. They know what negative SEO is. It's their arch nemesis. If their algorithms automatically take out everything that has negative SEO against them, well the good sites will be gone along with the bad..Google can't have that.

So I'm not saying I'm right, I'm not saying I'm wrong, I'm just speculating and so is everyone else.

What I can do is suggest a course of action to keep yourself away from all the speculation in the first place. It's what WA has been preaching anyway.

• Build user oriented sites. Forget everything SEO. Just build for the user, for most of you that means writing for the user.
• Market socially, I know all about article marketing and getting backlinks and so on, but market socially, this stands the test of time. If you write an article that everyone wants to tell their friends about you've just built backlinks AND you've gotten more visitors that will most likely come back again and again.

Other things that I suggest.

• Know and love your niche. Once you get visitors, you want to keep them. If you update your site once a year..well, I'm not that slow of a reader.
• Customize your theme. It goes with branding and all that stuff. If you can, do it.