I see you have deleted my comment talking about the penguin update and how it was going to affect my business. You did not feel the need to address me but did obviously feel the need for the comments removal.

It has been many months now since the penguin update and I would like to let you know what has happened with us since. Firstly we made changes to our site, but as the penguin update appears to be periodic this has made no change. We have gone from 3,000 monthly enquiries to 120. I have laid of all my staff, and I have had to move house as I can no longer afford the mortgage. I am close to splitting with my partner and 5 children due to our financial situation and of course there are problems in my ex employees lifes also whom have been affected by this as much as me.

What I would really like to know is this:

When will penguin be activated and run again? I am hoping we will regain some business once this happens which will rejuvenate my company and family life. Even just a rough idea would be very helpfull

An insiduous one I’ve had to deal with this weak on some of our forums is where the datastore is injection with a redirect that only affects traffic from Google and other search engines. So you can use the forum fine, so can other users, and you only discover the problem if you try and visit your site via Google – which I presume many will not.

Another issue is having very good anti-virus installed on your PC (especially if Windows). A couple of years ago I found users reporting malware warnings via their anti-virus, but mine reported nothing. After a few tests I found that Avast! works especially fast at identifying exploits, and AVG can be very good too, though certain popular brands can take days to identify there is a problem in the first place. By which time, your users have been infected while you are ignorant.

I really appreciate that time that Google has taken to address this issue, as certainly site hacking is something that needs to be addressed. But ultimately it is the site owner who is the first line of defense, so hopefully with increased awareness comes the ability to spot such issues faster, and therefore deal with them appropriately.

However, once the adrenaline wears off and logical thinking returns one must reflect and think things through. I recently did that and realized that cognitive dissonance (the sour grapes effect) plays a large role in why people respond as they did to your e-mail regarding hacked sites.

I am sure on some level these people must realize that the possibility they were hacked exists. Just as the Multi-World theory in quantum physics states that all outcomes exist simultaneously one must realize that in some universe their website could theoretically be hacked.

Although not always easy to do admitting you made a mistake is the only way to fix it. I recently experienced it as I became intimately acquainted with the “penguin”. Naivete is no excuse for mistakes. I now see the importance of your work in a new light. I agree assisting and “micro managing” webmasters 1:1 is not feasible. I can not even begin to understand how your re inclusion request team manages to work as fast as they do.

My point is although human nature dictates a knee jerk reaction at times recognizing that you made a mistake ultimately leads to correcting it. Without that “Ah-Ha” moment when you realize that something is awry and you realize it is actually something you have done or failed to do correction of the issue is not possible.

I wish you the best in your pursuit of a cleaner web. I actually wanted to apologize for my last post as i feel it was bitter. I am undergoing so life changing events right now. However, I do not want to be that guy; The one that says it is all Google’s fault. Mistakes happen we live and we learn. Thanks for all the great tools you give us webmasters to try to analyze and repair these issues.

- Poor passwords.
- Unpatched web applications.

It is also important to note that You do not have to be a target. Most of these attacks are done by bot nets. If you use popular tools, bots can find them and try to exploit them.

So do as Matt says and update those apps.

So, Matt what would the e-mail look like that one would send their kid as the bill collectors and taxman come to take all of their belongings? It is great that you “help” keep the web a safer place for people. However, people often forget that every story has two sides. It truly hurts (I know from personal experience) to deal with the loss of income that an attack can bring on a site owner.

And, by no means do I believe I am perfect. I made my share of mistakes. However, I believe we are all guilty at one time or another of using a keyword instead of an alternate word that has similar meaning. However, in all fairness the words web spam never came to mind. I thought (like millions of others) that we were within Google guidelines. In fact, I thought that Feedburner for webmasters was supposed to be a benefit not a tool for black hats to attack your site with 10,000 back links. Was I supposed to monitor Feed burner?

In addition, how does one stop others in the world from hurting them? I cannot stop sites like updowner from linking to me 1,000 times. I can ask nicely and hope they stop. As far as hackers go, I am sure they will not stop hacking, cracking, and freaking. Does that mean a site should be panelized indefinitely until the cyber police come to stop them?

Matt I honestly believe you and the web spam engineers have good intentions in your hearts. Unfortunately, you know what they say about good intentions. Moreover, I know my site does not spam. My site is not spam. I even took a 50,000-page html site and whittled it down to a several hundred-page Joomla site. I write unique and insightful content that others try to plagiarize. Most importantly, I do it free. I do not charge anyone to visit my site. I go out of my way to try to make the site better over time. In fact, I had just hired people to help me to provide even more free content.

Therefore, I am happy to hear that the fight against web spam is going well, however, it would be nice if their where a better way to mitigate the collateral damage. Good luck with eliminating hacked sites Matt. I wish you the best.