2012 saw two major updates to Google’s search engine known as the Panda and Penguin updates. These changed the landscape by introducing new criteria by which websites are ranked. It’s fair to say that while Google intended to scrub thin, spammy sites from its index and boost quality sites to the top of the rankings, the exact opposite happened.
There are plenty of stories about legitimate online businesses (not internet or affiliate marketers) who saw their sites (and earnings) tank overnight as a result of the Google updates (particularly Penguin). Despite the hue and cry that was raised at the time, Google remained uncharacteristically quiet in the aftermath. Perhaps they were too … 
