"Who Gets Penalized? Is the penalty completely out of the question? Probably not. "If Google were penalizing sites for getting links, then that is a significant repercussion," Danny says. "I have no doubt that in some cases [Google] might penalize, but the criteria would be really high." Danny could understand a site getting penalized "if you're running fifty websites that have no reason to exist other than linking to themselves or if [Google] sees other stuff that makes them think, "These links are odd! Not only should we not count these links, but we should do something to this website, period!'"

We have never used link farms. I can show more than one example of link farms. We totally agree that SEO companies using shady practices in the past should be penalized!

What is "higher criteria" than a site having more than 1000 different URLs linking in, all with the same HTML designed site? Does "High Criteria" go beyond that to protect against competitor malfeasance? - It must! - But WHAT and HOW? Should unknowing SEO clients be penalized too? - These are serious questions that just don't seem to be getting answered!

Ken
Ken