Google PANDA rolls out WorldWide

[incrediBILL]

Today, for the first time, after checking daily, I can now see US Panda results on Google properties worldwide including but not limited to: .co.uk, .ca, .co.in, .com.au, .fr, .de, .se, etc.

Congratulations, it's no longer speculation if you have Panda, it's quite visibly there.

[OldIrish]

@netmeg I'm sure they'll get to the scraper content eventually but first they have to ban or penalize every clean high quality original content driven site.

[backdraft7]

Worst day since Mayday 2010. Google seems intent on destroying our businesses. It's like and exterminator coming to your house to kill the roaches, but instead they kill your wife, kids and family pets. The roaches are still crawling.

Ok, here's the weird part...using the Google Preview tool, my site is EVERYWHERE! Top position on hundreds of key phrases. Still holding multiple positions (#1, #2, #3, #4 in some cases) on my best key phrases, yet today, my competitor who usually does 1/10th my daily sales, did 10x my sales. I'm not going to freak too bad, because I've seen this pattern so many times it's not funny. Within 48 hours, quality traffic should return...just gotta let the roach bomb smoke clear...but rest assured, they'll still be scurrying about afterwords.

[ErnestHemingway]

Just can't believe what is going on currently in search. Amazed as to how SMART the PhD guys are at GooglePlex. Junk Ehow, and HubPages are ranking better than my content which was 100% white hat since 2001, this is what I get to play according to Google Guidelines.

For love of God Google are you blind? Why Ehow is beating my site done by someone I know in real life who holds something recognizable?

Scraped content is ranking #1 I am ranking 15th, Ehow/Hubpages articles are ranking 8th and 9th? I thought you wanted quality white papers? Isn't 5000+ words written by someone who is expert on the topic worth it?

For another main site of ours, I see the guy on top providing no value to the end user 100% paid link profile that a stupid kid like me can spot and he is now ranking#1.

This global update has affected a lot of US searches as well. I thought the update for US results were done a while back.

[MsHuggys]

It's not rocket science people. Just divert your energy from your emotions to your intellect. Trust me, it was easy as pie to figure out how I got bumped out of my #1 position, where I had been for ten years.

It really turned out to be more simple than most of you think. You are thinking too broad.

Now it's time to hunker down, take that site down with a tried and true whitehat technique :) I've been watching the google search results closely, charting them and watching every little move for years for all relevant kw in my nitch. That site has never been in the top 99 pages of search results, yet now is #1.

That doesn't happen without leaving some major clues as to exactly how that took place. Spend more time looking at those search listings and less time whining. It's pretty clear what you need to do, when failure is never an option.

Also, the algo hasn't settled. Using several machines I've searched and found my main site (usa) at #2,#3,#4 and #5 in the past few hours.

[Tallon]

After spending more time looking around the serps today, I'm convinced this "isn't the one"...it's crap floating to the top time. I see the "a male body part" in the title of one mainstream key phrase (ranking top 5), "this site may harm your computer" in top 10, and malware sites ranking (it's like I'm searching in google images, lol). Not everywhere, but in some pretty decent traffic phrases that I watch.

I have taken a hit but not too bad considering the slight gain I had with panda #1...today is still up over 50% from this time last year so I can live with that...but the drop (if it sticks) is a warning shot, especially for my pages that are well linked to (regularly) and have enjoyed long term, stable rankings (when ask outranks that, something's wrong IMO).

What is outranking me: mainly brands brands and more brands, but oddly enough, not much ehow. One recipe search I did today showed three domains taking over the first page of results! I see lots from about, ask and mainstream publications, but social media celebrities are wrestling around right underneath me. I'm convinced that if you have a very active social media profile (for twitter and facebook especially), you can have the thinnest content on your website rank in top 10 though not for anything too crazy competitive I'm sure.

Still too early yet to know the overall damage my #1 site has taken, but just noting that it's not time to freak out just yet, I'm seeing a lot of bad crud ranking right now (and I don't mean scrapers or poor content, I mean cloaked adult stuff and malware).

What does look grim though are all the big brands taking over, once they figure out the content farm tricks (rewriting indie webmaster content), we're all sunk.

What Panda might be telling us is: build a big brand and if not, you're not going to be able to keep up and compete in the future. And the cynical side of me wonders if that wasn't the purpose this whole time (use the peons to build Google and the web for the big brands to step in and take over once it reaches critical mass).

[OldIrish]

@MsHuggys Wikipedia and corporate content scrapers now dominate in my niches (eHow, About, Yahoo Answers, etc). Hunkering down and mimicking their techniques means that I would have to turn my authority sites into million page trash heaps plastered with ads. Without a backdoor deal with Google and Matt Cutts propagandized approval of my "domain brand" I don't think that strategy will fly.

[koan]

I always figured the web was the last place where the best aren't necessarily determined by their marketing budget but by quality and creativity.

[potentialgeek]

Some funny junk is floating at the top.

Don't panic. Wait for the dust to settle.

I say that to myself, too. I just signed a mortgage today. :-)

[backdraft7]

@pgeek - I too find that on days when I make large purchases, traffic & sales stop ;^D
Gotta just roll with it, things usually return...usually.

[potentialgeek]

Did the rollout for Panda in the US back whenever that was in 2011 have as many strange results initially as the rollout of Panda International? If so how long did it take for everything to settle down?

> This global update has affected a lot of US searches as well. I thought the update for US results were done a while back.

This seems bizarre.

I haven't seen funkier Google search results on numerous queries since I first became a webmaster.

Some of the results are just too funny to let me panic.

[zoltan]

> I haven't seen funkier Google search results on numerous queries since I first became a webmaster.

> Some of the results are just too funny to let me panic.

You are right.

It would be great to have a section on google blogs where we can show those smart engineers some of the silly results presented...

[miozio]

Disaster! This search engine is dying with convulsions.

[onepointone]

Disaster! This search engine is dying with convulsions.

Nah, they are simply trying to become a "social" networking site, ala facebook.

Step #1: get people talking about them! Mission accomplished! On course! Full speed ahead!

[Roaming Gnome]

It would be great to have a section on google blogs where we can show those smart engineers some of the silly results presented...

Oh that would be great. I am seeing crazy things like:

11. domain/1.html
12. domain/aaa.html
15. domain/xyz.html

For the same keyword. I dont understand it.

[miozio]

They were good and stable till this Panda... They are now tossed into something they are not... Lets see how their stock tumbles when the dust settles in a month or so... We can clearly see their new results are totally useless... Its a one way street with a full speed huge garbage truck without brakes behind!

[ohno]

OK, of what I can see there has been a massive shift to domains that have the main keyword in them. Our one site that has this has seen a 300% INCREASE! Our other site which has much more content and many more products has seen a 90% drop. How accurate are Alexa stats? As they were bad enough for the one site to make me cry! The only other point is the site that has seen a massive increase is .com(hosted in UK and set to geo target UK), the one with the massive drop is .co.uk. Backdraft once again we see what you do, however I do not have the ability to check on a competitor like you do ;) (that must make it even more depressing!). Anyone who thought the sudden drop off was the weather I think you are deluding yourselves. This is a MASSIVE shift & if Mayday was anything to go by will take weeks/months to either filter through, or, this is it!

[miozio]

OHHH MYYY GOOODDD! I see sites with my content above me! I am soo MAD! Thieves wearing my shoes and legally recieving my salary! WHo gave them the right?

[ohno]

Google did with their quality driven search. Laugh or cry.

[onepointone]

AFAIK, there are no Search Engine Rules that require search engines to show the original content creator first.

So...what are you going to do?

[miozio]

Dear Google.. You deliberately welcome copyright infringement, it is against The law and we will not leave it like That. My, oh my... I see so many sites wiTh our content, every page had been stolen by highly authoritative domains... How can i find time for all of this? I need to work and not fight for my rights.. Its not The 16Th century! Devastated!

[CarlosMotoza]

I guess Google's way of trying to make their search engine more current and relevant results in newer, lesser quality content being promoted above trusted sources. It's a shame, but hopefully they'll fix some of these issues. I see some bad, black hatted websites getting some major search engine rankings now, which I thought was completely opposite what they intended to do!

- Carlos, Motoza Marketing

[miozio]

OH no! Facebook has my content too and its higher! So many other social sites where users just copied our info... This is so unfair... i am not gonna survive this!

[semseoanalyst]

For one of my clients pandalized web traffic/serp for co.uk and co.in and .ca is same...and as usual .com giving ranking fluctuations all the time...
and main money key phrase where we are among the top 5 spots for last three years and now fixed at 25th position, even for last 7days its untouched(no work has been done for last seven days for experimentation)

[OldIrish]

I initially said my traffic losses were -40%, but now I'm heading out into -60%+ territory as the full update day begins.

Looking at the serps this morning I'm seeing some of the initial junk disappearing, with corporate brands filling in the voids. All of my major and minor keyword niches now look relatively the same, with Wikipedia occupying the #1 spot and large corporate brands taking the remaining first page results.

This appears to be a complete corporate brand takeover of Google's first page results, with Wikipedia leading the charge. At this rate I give the search world 5 years before a total corporate driven lockout goes into affect, meaning search traffic will be dead to small publishers. The last bastion of traffic left will be direct domain based type-ins, however I'm sure Google will be able to custom tailor Chrome to solve that problem as well.

The internet just became television.

[uggur]

My 5 years sites' home page has been #2 for "my blue widget" but 2 days ago when I search for "my blue widget" the home page is nowhere to be seen; and it is not in first 15 page. Google Turkey (com.tr) looking pandalized. I will wait change for my competitor.

[jekko]

i just noticed their blog

not sure if this has already been posted

googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/04/high-quality-sites-algorithm-goes.html

[walkman]

"high-quality-sites-algorithm-goes.html "

This is Google sucking up to the media, imagine the horrible press they got before Panda

[Tallon]

This appears to be a complete corporate brand takeover of Google's first page results, with Wikipedia leading the charge. At this rate I give the search world 5 years before a total corporate driven lockout goes into affect, meaning search traffic will be dead to small publishers.

I've been thinking about that today too, for me there's a big flashing amber light that's warning of danger ahead but I'm thinking 5 years is overly optimistic (my guess is that it's more like 2). All is not lost though, there's opportunity here (and still some time) and you don't necessarily need to have VC money or investors to grab it with two hands.

I know that for many queries, *I* prefer indie websites rather than scanning the latest magazines or big brands online. I may not be the majority in that preference, but I bet there are a lot of us. So if google is making moves to let itself be the big brand promoter (for both its own properties and other investor and VC $$ backed sites), and bing and yahoo follow...there's going to be a void that needs filling (deja vu back to the days before google was google).

[Frank_Rizzo]

This is even stranger. Not only is the well established 11 year site home page off the radar, but a sister site, which I never got around to building ranks #6

LeftWidgets This is the 11 year old site.

Search for "widget stats" and the home page was #1 for over 4000 days. Now gone, replaced by a forum section which is now #1

RightWidgets This is a domain I bough 5 years ago. It's one page which just says what the site will be about. I have never got around to starting this project so it's more of a holding page, an under construction page.

Search for "widget stats" and this UC page is # SIX

Not only is one of my useless sites ranking infinitely better than the authority site, but this useless site is ranking way better than my competitors. So I and them are equally cheesed off.

It will be interesting to see WMT reports in a few days.

[semseoanalyst]

After Panda update Bing improves search market by 30% according to Hitwise..Google wake up: [hitwise.com...]

[edited by: tedster at 1:53 am (utc) on Apr 13, 2011]
[edit reason] make lin clickable [/edit]