Lot's of discussion on other forums about the effect that Googles devaluation of past credit given for links that where generated through reciprocal linking. There are even some interesting comments on Matt Cutts blog post regarding Google Hell that reveal what those who may be in the know think the effect of such a devaluation would be across all sites.

While many in the real estate biz seem to be effected in Google Serp's by something, perhaps it's the RE/SE Flu, if the cause of these demotions where due to reciprocal linking devaluation only don't you think that it would be an algorithmic change and furthermore something that would effect all websites, home or professionally made, in the same market in a similar manner?

If the recent demotions were caused by an algorithmic change related to the devaluation of reciprocal link values wouldn't you suspect that the sites remaining at the top of Serp's for popular searches would all be older websites with the largest accumulation of naturally occurring links? Is this the case in your market?

While I have no doubt that any value offered by a reciprocal link is ever dwindling, I believe we need to look at these demotions as a whole group and try to understand the commonality of the websites involved. What did they have in common? With out naming names, I know one of the RE website suppliers had encouraged their clients to link amongst their other clients, this could surely have sent up red flags at Google spam central monitoring.

It does not appear that these demotions are directly related to the supplier and all of their websites, as in each case some websites, from each supplier, remain near the top. At the same time, even considering the reality of dwindling reciprocal link power, which is easily witnessed in the reduced count of total link backs over time (you add more links, but your count at the SE's go down) I don't believe this is the root/only cause of this most recent demotion.

Care to accumulate a list of common factors and try to divine the real cause? Please post here.

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