Some Site Reputation Abuse Spam Penalties Landed on Big Players' Subdomains With No Other Repercussions

[Ryuzaki]

Looks like Google did finally start smacking all the affiliate sections on the big sites they continue to rank otherwise (nearly exclusively) based on their Site Reputation Abuse Policy (images from GSQI):

Forbes' Advisor:

AP News' Buyline:

Time's Stamped:

MarketWatch's Guides:

WallStreetJournal's Buyside:

CNN's Underscored:

(Edit: Fixed wrong image)

These were all likely manual penalties, since there's an insistence that the algorithmic part isn't live yet. I didn't even bother looking at them, but I'm assuming a bunch of them were probably just coupon code sub-domains (if they were smart) or sub-folders.

This really ought to impact the entire site, in my opinion, especially if they're brazen enough to keep doing it after Google announced they'd get smacked.

Some of these drops were going from:

• 12M monthly traffic to 7M
• 1M to 0
• 1M to 0
• 800k to 0

They made off like bandits into the sunset, especially with coupon codes and affiliate commissions, with zero repercussions to them. Just raking in the moolah for years. What a world. Meanwhile, every other content site in existence went down like 95% visibility for the sole crime of not being one of these bigger players that don't even get a slap on the wrist.

 

[Jesse]

Just FYI, I think your last two images are the same.