Google recently announced an impending overoptimization penalty. Supposedly, this algo change is all about giving "quality" content sites a fighting chance against sites with lower quality content but have great SEO value.
According to
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/ar...zation-Penalty we don't know exactly what "overoptimization" means but here's some suspected changes:
* Linking to a page from that same page with optimized anchor text. If the page is www.jillsfakesite.com/flannel-shirts, and in the body copy of that page I link the words ?flannel shirts? to the same page the words are on, IE www.jillsfakesite.com/flannel-shirts, that should count as over-optimization.
* Linking repeatedly from body copy to a handful of key pages with optimized anchor text. If 33 of my 100 pages link to www.jillsfakesite.com from the body copy with the anchor text ?Jills Fake Site,? that should count as over-optimization.
* Changing the ?Home? anchor text to your most valuable keyword. Usually the home link is the site?s logo. But in the cases where the home link is textual and has been optimized with the juiciest keyword, that should count as over-optimization.
* Overly consistent and highly optimized anchor text on backlinks. If 10 of the 100 links to a page contain the same highly optimized anchor text, such as ?Jill?s Fake Site, the Fakest Site Selling Flannel Shirts on the Web,? that should count as over-optimization.
* Generic keyword domain name. They have way too much impact on rankings, and need to be demoted in importance. Now I?m sure it?s difficult to determine which words are generic and which are brands. But Google seems to have cracked that nut at least partially with its related brands results. Surely they must be close to understanding the difference between the non-branded domain littleblackdress.com and the brand whitehouseblackmarket.com.
Now, the last part is troubling since many webmasters here buy aged keyword domains to get an edge. What impact do you think the coming algo changes would bring?