Important: Still in Testing
Many theories are out as to what this update did. We had a number of sites get nailed, and all things being equal one site got nailed while the other thrived. That put us in a very great spot for testing.
So far this appears to be manual penalty for all URLs reported via Google’s Penguin reporting page.
Solution: Internal 301 (same domain) to alternate keyword variation seems to work. 60% Confidence
Some black hats are suggesting older domains were given favor due to Blogspots and Weebly sites taking over. We have seen no indication that these “moved up” in any way. Our current theory to answer the “older domains” idea is everything else was hammered so much that these were the only sites that survived. They didn’t actually move up. We have 30% confidence in their theory. That being said, we are testing Web 2.0s ranking for competitive terms. So far, it works but 2.0s are an awful foundation for money-makers. It is not RCS and will never be a best practice.
One thing is certain: we can beat the algorithm, but we can’t beat manual reviews.
Update: Web 2.0 properties are completely worthless and not worth a $2/hr. outsourcer’s time. The main reason for the “older domains” moving up is the majority of them were not WordPress, not to say WordPress is an issue, but the majority of WordPress sites allow so many “non-needed” pages to be indexed the site ends up self-imploding. Following our format in only allowing the pages you want indexed to be indexed by Google will put you at an advantage to over 90% of the sites on the web.