Eh-Lee-Hee-Oh

Since Google started implementing the new algorithm name Dewey last February, a lot of site owner, SEO'er, webmaster and blogger experienced the notoriousness of G when it comes to site penalization. Rankings and indexed pages across data centers have been fluctuating which causes some e-commerce site, money making site loss their revenue.

Google’s Matt Cutts has responded to the issues raised on Google Groups discussion on site penalization, and he pointed out that the various Google penalties is associated with bad linking. This is the unusual ways of collecting backlinks, for example paid for review blogs, and template sponsorship.

Matt Says:

ShyBoy, have you been collecting backlinks in any unusual ways? It looks like you may have, and I would pay special attention to that. For example, if you had been attempting to get PageRank via paid links on various templates, then when that PageRank stops flowing (e.g. if Google improves its detection in various ways), the fact that you have less PageRank can also mean that a site won’t rank as well.

If that applies to you, my advice would be to pay special attention to that issue, in addition to the other good advice you’ve already gotten.

Now I'm confused, didn’t Matt Cutts already state that someone linking ‘to you’ can not affect you. But with regards to the other way around, then it can? What if someone added your link as sponsor on template? What if someone added your link on sponsor for review site? How do they know if this is a legit linking?

Currently I joined Busby SEO Challenge, and after a month my site got penalized. What I did is 3 way linking, blog commenting (not blog spamming) and that's it. My theory why my site got penalized, is not because of bad linking but because of fast link building, though I've seen some competitor doing the same but not get penalized. Google always caught me with my method, still thinking the best way to build backlink fast without G penalization. Simple penalization can easily neutralize by working on good backlinks and some onpage optimization.