> I’ve heard that a while back Google had a change to their algo that heavily prioritized widely used websites as “trusted”. They super-obviously did that some

> I’ve heard that a while back Google had a change to their algo that heavily prioritized widely used websites as “trusted”. They super-obviously did that some time around ‘08 or ‘09. Basically just gave up on the cat-and-mouse game they’d played with spam for years, based on actual content and (what they hoped they managed to suss out as) organic linking, and switched to heavy reputation- and size-weighting instead. It was a giant shift in their search’s behavior and unlike anything they’d done before, not subtle at all.