So G "rolled out a small algo change this week that improves the diversity of search results in terms of different domains returned". Yea diversified my ass, even this is telling: https://www.google.com/search?q=buy+viagra&hl=en - viagra.com #8, #2 a hacked edu, a "might be compromised" site in the mix, etc etc. Plenty of keyword rich domains, usual suspects. Other niches I checked also look funny. I guess time to fire up the spamming machines again.

My thoughts?

I think you don't need that stuff

My initial thought was "oh they must have just turned off the algo which showed 3+ results from the same site"  EG - https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hp+laptop+charger - but nope still dominated by Amazon.

Spam is making a massive come back and is screwing me for a couple of my main "volume data" keywords.  I'd be happy to spam a bit more aggressively but I'm trying to be able to survive the next G updates.

OMG... My conspiracy theory is it is all planned to have the best of us fighting the worst of us. E.g. first they took successful spammers and got them to believe they gotta go whitehat by Pandas and Penguins, you know those black and white animals, and then for a change they release a non-black and white animal which turns back and the ex-spammers' sites are affected by lower quality spam of those who never figured out how to do it the best way and will now have the top spammers fighting the lower degree spammers... Is it just me or the smell of pot in the neighbourhood making me go slightly paranoid

I don't know, I'm still trying to work out what you said

For the searches I keep an eye on they do appear to have fixed that ridiculous 6-8 results from each site issue, which is highly gratifying since I told one client complaining because they had dropped to #7 for a search term the other day that I'd give Google a call and ask them to sort their algo out.... this may enhance my reputation no end 

There's some strange stuff this morning for me though

* look to be testing number of paid results at top of page - often showing only 1 standard ad, and very often showing a line of product ads (the ones with pics - they're getting 5 across in that top block - pre christmas shuffle imminent?
* lot of SERPs have moved for no apparent reason, although results seem to have been getting really personalised recently anyway so not sure if thats just me.
* focus really back on anchor? lots of keywords in domain but also loads of apparently random stuff which looks to be there just off the inbounds?