Google February Update 2013 : Check. Checkmate.

In late January and now into early February, Google seems to be afoot with another round of algo tweaks and it isn't pretty: If you already have lost a ton of your website traffic, you're probably losing even more. From what I can tell: More loss of ranking keywords overall, lower ranking for top money keywords, and continued downward pressure on most of your backlink sources that can no longer prop up your site(s). Slow death by STRANGULATION. It's like a bad game of chess and the majority of us are getting backed against the wall. Check. Checkmate!

For all practical purposes, most of our sites are DEAD in Google's eyes - unless there's an obscure, long-tail keyword they can USE you for on occasion. Eventually whatever PageRank you had will decline too because PR isn't just about the authority of backlinks pointing to your site, it's about the traffic you get. And as your traffic erodes, so will your visible PageRank score when it's updated and periodically refreshed.

If you look at the graph above you'll see a consistent pattern. The two traffic charts on the left are just random sites with a pattern I endlessly see at semrush.com : THe fatal Penguin Update of April 2012 destroyed their website traffic - and they simply have not recovered since. It doesn't matter what the domains are. I coulda grabbed 100 graphs - and 90% of them would show this pattern. Penguin didn't just damage YOUR website, it decimated the visibility and ultimately -- the entire DEMOCRACY of the internet. 90% of the internet is GARBAGE in Google's view and it seems 2013 Google updates will just take out the last of the remaining trash.

The graph on the right-hand side is an aggregate chart of dozens of websites I monitor and track. Not just my own - but client sites as well added into the mix - tracked by Quantcast. The pattern is still the same. There's an absolute decimation of traffic that hit in April 2012, and there's absolutely no recovery in the 10 months since. As Google apparently intends... Stick a fork in it. Fold your cards. Tip over your King and concede the game. Google doesn't really care if my sites - or your sites - even exist.

The flatline you see is all that remains: Thank you Bing, Yahoo, FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest -- the crumbs you leave behind are mighty tasty when one is on a starvation diet...