Written on 24 April 2012 by 
After Panda last year that affected about 12% of queries, Google is rolling out a new algorithm change that will affect about 3.1% of search queries.
“The opposite of “white hat” SEO is something called “black hat webspam” (we say “webspam” to distinguish it from email spam). In the pursuit of higher rankings or traffic, a few sites use techniques that don’t benefit users, where the intent is to look for shortcuts or loopholes that would rank pages higher than they deserve to be to be ranked. We see all sorts of webspam techniques every day, from keyword stuffing to link schemes that attempt to propel sites higher in rankings.The goal of many of our ranking changes is to help searchers find sites that provide a great user experience and fulfill their information needs. We also want the “good guys” making great sites for users, not just algorithms, to see their effort rewarded. We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites. As always, we’ll keep our ears open for feedback on ways to iterate and improve our ranking algorithms toward that goal.”
According to Search Engine Land, the update is going live today (despite Google says it will be in the next few days).
Note : last week some webmasters saw a drop in traffic. This was not due to algorithm changes but rather to a bug related to parked domains.
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