Mercury News Interviews Matt Cutts - "Panda update working as intended"

[tristanperry]

Q How well is the new algorithm working, in Google's view?

A This change was designed to surface higher-quality content. We've heard from many publishers who are grateful, because their traffic has gone up after this most recent algorithmic update. I got an email from a user, and she said, "A couple months ago, I was searching for information about pediatric multiple sclerosis, and previously, low-quality sites were ranking above government sites." And she said, "I searched recently, and the government sites were ranking first." And that's the kind of feedback we like to hear from our users, and we've been hearing very positive feedback.

- [mercurynews.com...]

[nippi]

Because I'm personally effected(traffic down around 40%) I am being pretty strict with my own personal opinions.

Am I pissed off because of lost earning or are my grievances valid? A bit of a mix of both.

The concept of adding a sitewide penalty, because some parts of a site might have issues, is poor logic.

for example, a site might have 100 pages of great content, the best content on a topic, this content devalued because of having a thin business directory attached to it.

Who is penalised? The user, who when searching would have really preferred to get the good content, than the #*$!ty content of the site that has 100 pages of lesser content on the same topic.... but no thin pages.

I've got several sites where the main content is all market leading, well written, unique and has been top ranking for over 6 years. Additionally, there is a business directory where businesses are free to copy and paste the description from the about us page. Ive banned one directory from Google, the site has made a recovery.

its silly. the business directory is not better than the best business directories on the topic, and its not unique content, but its content my site visitors want to see when the find my site through the articles.

for ages the directory has ranked poorly, now it appears the whole site gets to rank poorly unless i remove it.

I fail to see, how Panda is providing people with better content.

[Dan01]

"A couple months ago, I was searching for information about pediatric multiple sclerosis, and previously, low-quality sites were ranking above government sites." And she said, "I searched recently, and the government sites were ranking first."

Matt Cutts is wrong. The top SERP is scholarly results - not government. The second result is the Cleavland Clinic - not government.

The third result is a non-profit. - Not a government.

Speaking of non-profits (ie charity): My wife and I were talking about that. It is a great idea. You start a non-profit which is tax exempt, set yourself up as CEO and pay yourself a lot of money. That is not uncommon.

The next is a UK charity. - not a government.

And then the News Results. - not a government.

And then Children's Hospital. - not a government.

It is not that hard to check. There was an .edu result further down the list.

I think Matt would help make his point by showing us the results from before Panda. I am curious.

[Dan01]

According to Wikipedia:

The Cleveland Clinic is one of the largest private medical centers in the world.

Speaking of Wikipedia, I wonder what Jimmy Wales pays himself. Those non-profits can be very profitable for the founders. Hopefully he isn't taking advantage of the system.

[TheMadScientist]

@backdraft7 ... LOL ... I saw that! I really didn't know there was a correct way to do it, so maybe they were 'quality' and I didn't realize it or something? lol

[potentialgeek]

I think there's been a recent shift with the algo which gives more weight to a primary keyword in a search string.

For several years, if you had a highly ranked site for one big keyword, you could also draw many searches which included that keyword. That changed a year or more ago as Google no longer gave the site the benefit of the doubt.

But now I'm seeing what looks like a return to that old concept. Two sites in my sector which are #1 and #3 for widgets, are suddenly getting high/top ranking for phrases like red widgets and blue widgets.

If the algo has shifted the weight back to the primary keyword (widgets), that could explain why eHow keeps doing quite well for anything with the word "how" in it, assuming Google has given the site authority status for that word. That seems like a fair assumption because: eHow is #3 for how and #1 for how to.

[crobb305]

I was just re-reading some of the early Wired interviews. What is odd is that in the March 3 Wired interview, MC gave the same "pediatric multiple sclerosis" example that was used in the Mercury article published over a month later. Were the two interviews conducted on the same day? That's possible, which means the discussion about the pediatric multiple sclerosis query that stemmed from last week's Mercury article came a month too late. The SERPS for that phrase have changed. Otherwise it may have been the only "positive" feedback they received if the same example had to be used for both interviews. As Dan01 pointed out, there is only see ONE government site ranking for that phrase (at #6). So, the search results must not have been that great since they changed. [wired.com...]

Just trying to get the timeline down in my mind to figure out what was said when and how Panda is getting tweaked.

[Reno]

What is odd is that in the March 3 Wired interview, MC gave the same "pediatric multiple sclerosis" example ... Were the two interviews conducted on the same day?

You're right ~ it is possible it was the same day ~ but more likely it's simply a "tool" he pulls out to make his point when doing interviews. Like most people here, I DO appreciate that MC attempts to keep a bridge open to the webmaster community, however I wish he was more than a spinmeister and actually gave us meaningful information.

But as a guy who puts out the official Google party line, his salary is well earned.

The fact that he pulls out the same pediatric email ~ not the greatest example by the way ~ tells me that the ratio of positive to negative is most likely overwhelmingly on the side of negative feedback. So he pulls out his one example and thus gives the impression that people are pleased.

Memo to Matt Cutts: Panda has fallen considerably short of your stated goals and people are NOT happy. Deal with reality Matt, not with the PHD Fantasyland babble you hear at GooglePlex coffee breaks.

.................................

[crobb305]

Like most people here, I DO appreciate that MC attempts to keep a bridge open to the webmaster community

Absolutely. I agree, I am very appreciative of MC and he has worked very hard to help bridge the communication between Google and webmasters. I watch almost all of his videos. He's a funny guy. I understand the position he is in also...he has to choose his words very carefully, which isn't easy to do when you're put on the spot or being recorded. I actually edited my post above a few times before I was satisfied with it, because I was worried it sounded too critical of MC. I think he knows we are VERY glad to have him -- We only wish Bing had someone talking to us like that.

The fact that he pulls out the same pediatric email ~ not the greatest example by the way ~ tells me that the ratio of positive to negative is most likely overwhelmingly on the side of negative feedback. So he pulls out his one example and thus gives the impression that people are pleased.

It definitely doesn't speak highly of Panda if the one search query they got positive feedback on has been modified. I expect to see government sites ranking based on the quote from the interview. If Panda results were so good, where are the government sites that were making them so great?

I still say 12% right out of the gate was entirely too much. They should have targeted 3% MAYBE 5% and tweaked it from there.