Court Tuttle is an internet marketer. His blog used to be in the number three spot on the front page of Google for the highly competitive keyword "internet marketing".
He had a following. He posted daily. Good, informative, original posts.
Then he abruptly stopped. His posting frequency became sporadic. Was it blogger burnout? A busy summer? Personal issues?
August 12, 2008. It all becomes clear, in his post entitled "Content Has Never Been the King", he tells his loyal readers that his sporadic posting was on purpose. That content was not king, after all. How did he know this? Despite his failure to update his blog regularly, he still had his much-coveted Google ranking for the keyword "internet marketing".
His post sparked a heated debate. I can't say with any certainty, but I think it ticked somebody off enough that they reported his site to Google. Poor Court's site did not fare well after the manual review. Poof! Gone from Google, just like that...
September 8, 2008. He posts a retraction. "As It Turns Out, Content Is King." A transparent attempt to regain favor with Google. Only time will tell if it works.