When the SearchEngineLand site asked their visitors to choose a name for Google's latest algorithm changes, Titanic came up as the winner. This is a very appropriate name since these recent changes affecting sites which have "over" optimized their SEO, will sink thousands, if not millions, of online sites and businesses.

Or will it?

The outcry was immediate as webmasters woke up wednesday morning (April 25, 2012) to find many of their sites have disappeared from Google's rankings, wiping out years of link building and SEO efforts. Even sites which have been online for over 10 years took major hits or de-rankings in Google's all important SERPs. In order to spin the discussion on this recent update, Google has officially named it Penguin, but many webmasters still refer to it as the Webspam Update and a few still refer to it as the Titanic Update.

Google has stated it wants to reward sites which don't aggressively practice SEO to build page rank and rankings, especially those tactics which don't adhere to Google's guidelines. In other words, if you have tried to "game" the rankings, your site may be demoted or lowered in the rankings. Google wants this recent update to produce a level playing field, where quality sites naturally rise to the top of the rankings.

The whole series of Panda Updates have wrecked havoc on countless sites, some which were of very high quality and didn't deserve the heavy-handed treatment these updates delivered. Many of these sites recovered their traffic and rankings, only to be hit, time and time again, by another round of changes. Targeted search engine traffic from Google is so valuable, most webmasters are more than willing to jump through hoops to make sure they're playing within Google's guidelines.

However, it's these same honest hard-working webmasters, who are sometimes unfairly penalized by these constant updates... many will be too shell-shocked, too battle-weary to continue the constant struggle to live up to an impossible task master. Unfortunately, these latest changes may just remove many of these webmasters and sites from the web. If the situation seems too hopeless, many of these webmasters will simply abandon their sites or stop working on them.

While it may not be true, with these constant updates, it seems like Google is waging a battle of attrition against webmasters, and many webmasters simply won't be able to survive the onslaught.

The major reason for the failure of countless sites will simply be time or the lack of time. If webmasters have to spend extra time fixing or changing their sites and marketing to meet Google's demands, they won't have time to create quality content or even have time to run their business properly. With limited resources, hiring someone to re-design their sites can be costly to say the least; many simply won't be able to afford the countless fixes Google is demanding, especially when most of these fixes are "trial and error" solutions, since Google obviously can't tell webmasters what's wrong with their sites or why their sites are no longer ranking high in the listings.

Many, will find other ways to find traffic outside of Google (never a good idea to have all your hopes in the one basket) but even then it will be very hard to replace the lucrative traffic which Google produces. Many struggling commercial and business sites may become too marginal or simply not profitable enough without this Google traffic.

While no one can accurately predict the full fallout of these constant updates and the jury is still out on how much collateral damage will be done. Sadly, for many of these struggling webmasters and site owners, this Google Penguin has Titanic written all over it and there's an iceberg on the horizon.

Google also knows webmasters can "cry foul" or "beg for mercy" all they like; truth be told, webmasters and site owners have been doing the same thing for years. However, it is only when the mainstream public starts realizing Google's recent SERPs or listings are inferior and start switching their search habits - then and only then - Google might admit they have an actual problem on their hands. When you're king, you have to believe you will be king forever.

But in this computer age, Google is our Titanic, and we all know how that story ends.

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