With the August 1 and September 27 Google Algorithm updates (2018), Google could be tweaking link power for "trusted links"

The impact from both the August & September updates can't be emphasized enough. I just analyzed a niche that got destroyed. One by one, many of the sites got smoked. And if the link-power tweaking I mentioned in my blog post about the September 27 update is true, then you'll need to work hard to gain stronger links.

Again, I mentioned this in my post about the 9/27 update. Any tinkering to "trusted links" could cause significant impact across the web. And I believe that's the most scalable way for Google to fine-tune trust.

Then Google could dial-up, or down, trust (globally). They could increase the power of some, decrease the power of others, & BOOM, the entire web shakes. Remember, Google needs a scalable way to do this. Checking specific sites, ratings, reviews, etc. probably isn't the way.

For example, I have provided screenshots of a YMYL site that got smoked in August, then completely surged back in October. They did absolutely nothing to surge. That's confirmed BTW. So would make sense that Google dialed-down, then up, some signal. They have an incredible link profile. Very powerful.

Also interesting to note that they surged BEYOND where they were, so if Google dialed-up a signal, they turned the dial like AC/DC was playing and they were preparing for a big football game. Again, this site did nothing to surge (confirmed). Crazy swing. :)

What's been interesting is to use the Solo Links tool in Majestic and the Link Intersect tool in Ahrefs to see unique linking domains for each site you compare. I've seen some very interesting things pop out. If I have time, I'll try and write a post about this.