Many Weeks since the Panda Update - Any Improvements?

[grimmer]

It has been 2 weeks now since google's Farmer update on Feb. 24th, for the sites that are affected, anyone see any improvements? For my site, we have started to remove low quality content a week ago, but have not seen any ranking improvements so far.

[falsepositive]

@Zerillos, I meant that when we redesigned my site header he accidentally left the logo with hidden text (it was with font size 0). It was not spammy by any means, so not sure if this had an effect. It may be construed as suspicious but it would look more like an accident. It did not have any outwardly obvious keywords either, just a description. But at this point, not sure if this algo is that forgiving...

I'm not so well versed in what constitutes acceptable or not -- seems like this bot is putting me on edge ;) . I'm also questioning my site navigation now -- whether it's laid out reasonably or not.

I've decided to noindex all my category and archive pages as they were just all lists and I'll work on them to make them more meaty and customized, then release the pages when ready.

[snickles121]

We also made changes but have not noticed anything different in rankings or traffic after doing so. Im not gonna do anything crazy with pages because we still have a good fair of traffic and our income is still the same if not better this month because of better conversions. We still control our major keywords, just took some lower rankings on less relevant ones, but we also took better rankings on better converting and more on topic keywords.

Traffic isnt everything especially if keywords are not the proper ones for your site.

[walkman]

[google.com...]

This is not limited to this particular algorithm update & your site, but I'd like to mention it regardless:
I can assure you that our algorithms are not one-way streets. As a website is updated, recrawled, reindexed, and with that, the site's signals reassessed, our algorithms will take those changes into account and treat the website accordingly. There are countless examples of that happening here in the forums, I see them regularly.

That process is usually not something that takes place overnight after a webmaster has uploaded a fresh copy of the code for the website. For example, it takes time for us to recrawl the pages, the bigger the site, the longer it will take. The better a site is structured (less duplicate content, no infinite URL spaces, etc), the faster we'll be able to recrawl parts of a site and take that content into consideration. Sometimes, even after recrawling parts of a site, our algorithms will need a bit of time to confirm that the site has really changed for good.

All of this can and will take time. Personally, I'd recommend not waiting to see if a single, small change will make a difference, our algorithms rarely have a "one-track-mind," they take many factors into account. Because of that, I'd recommend always continuing to work on your site, to improve it, expand it, to get feedback from your users and to take action on that feedback (happy users come back and recommend your site to their friends!). Even when you start to see changes, don't stop there -- make your site into the best resource of it's kind.

So we guessed a few things right. Even after re-crawling it will take some resources to re-rank everything.

[rustybrick]

So did anyone bounce back after making changes?

[Ummon]

Here is what I can't figure out. One of my sites got hit on the Jan 29th update then a second one with Panda. The one that got hit by panda went from #3 to somewhere on page 5 for its main key phrase. Now given I did have some thin content which I am deleting as I go.

The ones that are in the top positions now is a tgp and a top 100 site. How in the world are they not thin?

[dazzlindonna]

rustybrick, as far as I've been able to tell from studying the posts here over the last two and a half weeks, the answer would be no, no one has bounced back after making changes.

[indyank]

dazzlindonna, you are right.Is it that google is now maintaining a white list rather than a block list that they might have used earlier?

[Jane_Doe]

My traffic has been fairly stable since the Panda update. It is weird because I see terms bouncing all over different ranking spots, but at the end of the day the totals don't seem to vary much from the post-Panda expected amounts for that day of the week.

[dazzlindonna]

indyank,

Based on JohnMu's words below (which falsepositive noted in message #4282219 here: [webmasterworld.com...] I am hoping that it's now a waiting game for those who have made changes (assuming they made the right changes). John said (bolding from me, not him):

This is not limited to this particular algorithm update & your site, but I'd like to mention it regardless:
I can assure you that our algorithms are not one-way streets. As a website is updated, recrawled, reindexed, and with that, the site's signals reassessed, our algorithms will take those changes into account and treat the website accordingly. There are countless examples of that happening here in the forums, I see them regularly.

That process is usually not something that takes place overnight after a webmaster has uploaded a fresh copy of the code for the website. For example, it takes time for us to recrawl the pages, the bigger the site, the longer it will take. The better a site is structured (less duplicate content, no infinite URL spaces, etc), the faster we'll be able to recrawl parts of a site and take that content into consideration. Sometimes, even after recrawling parts of a site, our algorithms will need a bit of time to confirm that the site has really changed for good.

All of this can and will take time. Personally, I'd recommend not waiting to see if a single, small change will make a difference, our algorithms rarely have a "one-track-mind," they take many factors into account. Because of that, I'd recommend always continuing to work on your site, to improve it, expand it, to get feedback from your users and to take action on that feedback (happy users come back and recommend your site to their friends!). Even when you start to see changes, don't stop there -- make your site into the best resource of it's kind.

I'll start really sweating if another month goes by with no results.

[indyank]

rustybrick, as far as I've been able to tell from studying the posts here over the last two and a half weeks, the answer would be no, no one has bounced back after making changes.

unfortunately those who recovered never come back here. I know of atleast three sites that had recovered and their owners may not be regular visitors here.At best they would be passive readers.

[indyank]

I think i was posting at the same time as you.

I had to add that the sites which recovered, never did anything visibly different to get back to pre-panda rankings.But i know that atleast two of them had filed reconsideration requests.Both these sites are in the list of sites that sistrix had released.

[Destin]

Those clients who have seen a drop tend to be consistent with part of their backlink profile being discounted rather than a penelty as such. I wonder, if those of you experiementing with onsite changes, have considered that farmer may of hurt the sites linking to you, as opposed to you personally, and what you are seeing is the knock-on effect?

Agree with almighty monkey,
few of my sites that got hit as early as on Feb 8-10,rebouncing right after I have send them new high quality BL.None of them were hosting thin content, its all original, no duplicates,brick and mortar, providing real services sites.They were hit, but are coming back.
So the only logical reason for the drop was that their BL profile was the cause of the drop..
And since big article hostin sites got discounted , the article based BL did too.
Now , if your site has low quality, thin or whatever you call content, then I would understand, farmers update pushed it down and basically all you can do is clean up onsite content, but dont forget,you also need BL from reputable places to back it up.

[walkman]

.Both these sites are in the list of sites that sistrix had released.

Indy, it's safe to say that Google has poured over that well publicized list and taken action by hand.

[Destin]

However, being in the local directory biz, the main thing I've noticed is that it appears Google dialed up local sites ranking over directories and Google Places is definitely pushing many local directories down into an extinction level event...Bye bye directories.

My local biz directory is doing well, no sign of decline, still have many category pages as well as individual business profiles ranking high on page one, in many cases outranking the customers sites and being it Chicago local , we're talking about several millions search results on any given local search term.

[mromero]

There in email from G today on a success story.

Looking at the site uptake I do not much or any original content.

The site scrapes 5,000 sites "..so you don't have to", then aggregates little headlines and snippets and wraps this around lots of adsense adverts.

What gives? Is this the new success model <GRIN>

[spaceylacie]

Despite making major changes in a lot of sections of my site that took a bad hit, no improvement, no change worthy of mentioning either. I did however notice that one of my biggest competitors, which appeared on the biggest winner list for this update, is now #1(was #5 a week ago while I dropped to 100+ or so) for the keywords I used to be #1 for. I have never tried to copy her site and actually always considered it to be shallow compared to what my site has to offer. I guess years ago I should have just thought about a good brand name, not relevant content in my niche. Name branding is now king, not content.

[tedster]

few of my sites that got hit as early as on Feb 8-10,rebouncing right after I have send them new high quality BL

Feb 8-10 is too early to be part of the Panda update - that happened around Feb 24. I'm happy to see you rebounded, though. And welcome to the forums, Destin.

[crobb305]

Feb 8-10 is too early to be part of the Panda update - that happened around Feb 24.

Would you say it's safe to assume that Panda is continuing to spread such that more sites are being hit even a week or two weeks after Feb 24? I was hit March 11. I can only assume it was Panda, as most of the pages that took the hardest hit in WMT (comparing the day before and the day after penalty), were my "thin" pages. I think Panda is still hitting sites as their deep crawl comes around (I only see a deep crawl about once every 45 days). So I tend to think the algorithm began on Feb 24, but it is still ongoing.

C

[tedster]

Yes, I'd say that Panda is continuing to evolve and that might mean new sites feeling its effect.

I'm not thinking of Panda as anything small. I'm thinking of it as something quite radical, almost like a third major segment of the core algorithm.

Before Panda: Citations + Relevance
After Panda: Citations + Relevance + Quality

We know that Google collects information for many, many signals that were not being actively used in ranking. I expect to see a lot of those signals getting blended into the recipe as time goes on. I'd guess that Panda is already doing exactly that.

Some of Google's patents listed an amazing array of potential signals - many of which have clearly not been in use. But I see those patents as a kind of wish list, one that Google keeps returning to as they have the available resources.

[Content_ed]

I agree that they've added a third major factor, I just question their calling it "quality". Based on what they've said about the methodology, I would call it "curb appeal."

[tedster]

LOL! That's excellent. What else can a machine algorithm measure anyway, right?

[Content_ed]

As near as I could understand the comments Matt Cutts made about the new algo, they don't actually understand it, but they looking at the results it "made sense" to them.

The main thing I object in their use of human testers is the way they did it, giving them pages to judge as opposed to giving them problems to answer (anybody remember the old Google Answers?).

You'd need to have a pretty simple problem to find an answer on eHow, or Amazon, or the IRS site for that matter, since none of them provide expert advice or analysis. The IRS in particular thrives on not providing answers and sending everybody to their "accountant or tax specialist." That's what used to separate the small sites that drew organic linking from the rest, the fact that they offered something of value, the ability to explain complicated issues, experience, analysis.

The new system is just the mathematical expression of what people think of a website as they drive by. Not surprising that 500 million FaceBook users might think a FaceBook button is important, or that people would be comfortable giving their credit card to Amazon or Sears.

And when Google took these new metrics and looked at the results, they saw some ad-drenched article farms crawling with pop-ups went away, and they declared victory. The problem, with all respect to Mr. Panda, is they were asking the wrong question. So instead of quality search results they now produce comfortable search results.

[anne10]

Hi,

Mine is a UK Shopping site. I am experiencing a drop in Google Traffic.

And for the last 2 days, I got only 70 & 26 visits from Google shopping from which I will usually get more than 200 visits daily.

What should i do to gain my traffic again?

[tedster]

anne10, the Panda update hasn't rolled out to the UK so far. Have you lost traffic from the US?

[anne10]

My shop targets the UK customers and my domain ends with .com and not .co.uk.

I am not clear why my traffic from Google shopping decreased to greater extent.

Thanks

[Globetrotter]

anne10, the Panda update hasn't rolled out to the UK so far. Have you lost traffic from the US?

If this is the case why did my traffic also drop in Europe on the same day? I have a website which is non-english and i harldy get andy visitors from the US. But I'm seeing the same pattern as some of the websites describe to see if you are hit.

I also see a lot of english results, instead of local ones.

[browsee]

Check this link [labnol.org...] , labnol traffic is back to normal now.

[Content_ed]

@brownee

Did you notice that labnol DID file a site reconsideration request? I find it interesting that his traffic didn't just improve, it essentially returned exactly to trend, as if a red flag was removed. And WebmasterTools does say it takes a few weeks just to get around to looking at reinclusion requests.

[falsepositive]

I've said before there is a sitewide issue here and have felt it to be the case. It acts like a penalty but I guess it's some kind of sitewide demotion based on a quality score. You just don't want to trip it! I am happy when I hear stories like this. There is hope!

[browsee]

I am not sure about reconsideration request, I did not file yet. The writer did mention about reconsideration request.

Since the immediate reaction was that the site may have been incorrectly penalized, I did a reconsideration request with Google. Over time, it became clear that a reconsideration request may not work in this case as it was not a site-specific penalty but an algorithmic change affecting a large number of sites.