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.

[Asia_Expat]

Seriously, this is what I'm seeing too. I'm profoundly aware of how easy it is to say this, but my site is above all totally compliant with white-hat guidelines. My pages are unique in my niche, well written, at least 400 words + and I'm now being marked down below utter cr@p, or irrelevant pages/websites... My main, most popular page is now being outranked by an ANCIENT article from 1993!

It's clear that the only way for small operations like mine to get on top is to write regurgitated thin pages, throw up a few text ads from low-ball affiliate networks, and abandon any notion of building a quality site. We should also actively seek unsolicited links... Cr@p is what the world wants... old cr@p. Let's work together with Google to make it so. We'll be rich!

[Daftpunk44]

It's ironic isn't it - for an animal that suffers from one of the lowest libidos in the world, Google's panda sure has manged to f**k a lot of people at the same time!

I personally agree that it's a number of factors having influence - ad blocks, thin content, scraped content, daisy cutter pages, keyword stuffing etc. Google say it took them over a year to construct and I think they've gone for the 'shock and awe' technique. I really feel for any quality white hatters out there (which I'm not) that got hit. At least I know what I'm doing wrong, many others can't comprehend their slap.

[falsepositive]

The first hit was a "test" this 2nd hit is the "real thing". Agree with crobb305 that this is what G wanted. I saw a lot of changes from the 1st time I was hit in Feb. I gradually did recover and was on an upward trend. But now hit again.

There was mention here of this algo being one that "learns". I'm hoping that over time it will recover to original levels after some work and time. That was the behavior I saw the first time.

[backdraft7]

I will say that one of my worst cheap shot scraper competitors has dropped quite a bit. He's an SEO professional with a MFA site and I expect him to be back on top within a week. That's the problem, Google makes a change and the SEO MFA artists seem to figure a way to game the system immediately. This leads to the non stop DC upsets for stable, good content sites. It's like a dog chasing it's tail.

I think hard 950 penalties are the only way to get scammers to comply or die. eHow needs to be slapped HARD for duplicate article spamming (the three nose picker articles come to mind, unfortunately).

[HuskyPup]

Reminds me of Windows Vista, everyone thought it sucked, except Microsoft itself.

There ya go...I prefer Vista Basic to 7 any day :-)

Someone asked pages ago whether anyone had seen any improvements?

I have to say that my widget sector is looking far, far better than it has done for years with lots of the garbage completely gone and for all the keywords I've checked as yet I have to say at least 90% relevant and good quality.

Personally I've done ok out of this up to now with traffic up considerably across all sites with various tlds...we'll see how long this lasts however I would say this is here to stay apart from some essential tweaks.

[ohno]

falsepostive, did you do anything to your site to recover last time? We did not(May Day & we have had downs since then too) and things have always gone back up. This time I'm very nervous though, I've not seen it like this before, ever!

[Mal_Jones]

Has anyone thought of blocking the #*$!e sites that should not appear in the serps? Come on people , Google are asking us to do this so sign into your google accounts and start blocking those mfa, scrapers and #*$!e sites. Lets start with ehow hey......

[falsepositive]

@ohno, yes, I did a ton of changes. But now I am left scratching my head a little bit. I am now not sure if whether anything I did helped "fix" my site or whether Google was just allowing the algo to "run its course". From what I'm seeing, the first slap seemed like a small US set was hit. This next round encompassed a wider range of sites. I felt singled out in my niche but now, a lot of big players in my niche are down in a big way.

It makes me think that this algo is made to "reboot" the web. Then it learns over time. In the meantime, I was doing what I could to make fixes and I did a full site audit and noticed a lot of "holes". I acted on what I could and I am actually not done yet. So now, I am not quite sure if my actions had any direct results as my recovery was in a gradual "wave" form. A big hit, then it went much lower then it got better over the next couple of weeks, with 10% improvements each week. Now it's back down at the lowest levels.

My guess is that there was some data collection going on the first time based on a subset of sites and phrases (in the US). Now it's loose everywhere and their algo will be reworking ranks based on stats, etc.

[backdraft7]

@ Mal - I wonder if Google takes that into account...or is it just for your own personalization?
Whatever happened to the Chrome voting feature?

[Mal_Jones]

In some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms.

[Asia_Expat]

I don't believe for one second that surfers are blocking my content pages and instead choosing the menu/internal link pages of my competitors... if they really are doing that, I might as well just give up and build template/scraper/news-repost sites.

[crobb305]

In some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms.

I hope they have some very sophisticated methods for ensuring that a site hasn't been targeted by a take-down campaign. It wouldn't be hard for spammers/scammers to make a "sign up and block this link" statement in social media. I think it's foolish to allow this metric to ever be used. Techies are more likely to use Chrome, and techies are more likely to be webmasters who understand the impact. The downline abuse/manipulation potential isn't a stretch here.

[marketingmagic]

From the research I've done this morning it definitely looks like the sites with higher domain/link authority escaped punishment and in fact experienced a lift in traffic.

So from what I'm seeing I'll be focusing on building our link profiles and adding content to the site as a whole.

[c41lum]

Has anybody tried dropping all there pages and starting from scratch on the domain just with a few pages.

[Asia_Expat]

I never thought I'd find myself whining in one of these algo-change threads!

The weird thing is that in the limited research I've done so far, my forum pages don't appear to have been affected at all (or if they have, I can't tell yet)... but many of my solid, quality static pages have dropped to the bottom of page one, or the second and third pages (or worse) with rubbish above them... and these are my key earners.

[MoneyHoney]

I want to share my experience:
I don't work in the US Market, so I don't well understand the real effect of Panda. I have just 4 sites in english, and I use them just to get indexed my backlinks (like profiles forum, comments and so on). To build this type of project, I've used aged domains with PR (from PR3 to PR5), but they just publish scraped contents from articles sites.

Why do I want to share my experience? Simply because all these sites are not penalized, but they receive more traffic now then before, just because they are aged, with PR and without any ADS. If this is the way Panda Update works, I understand why you are so angry!

[supercyberbob]

Me so angly.

Said the Panda, as it spread grief and misfortune across the land.

[ohno]

Has anyone else checked the date of cached pages for their sites? Ours are both the 6th of April! Just when things went pear shaped!

[stevelibby]

april 9 & april 6 for 2 sites

[denisl]

"I hope they have some very sophisticated methods for ensuring that a site hasn't been targeted by a take-down campaign."

Well I guess they know quite a lot about what we do whilst logged into Google.

[Reno]

I'm hoping that over time it will recover to original levels after some work and time.

We're all hoping for this but I think we have to be careful not to have false hope. Google is on the record as saying they are pleased with the Panda update because it is doing what they want, and thus I think we can surmise, from their POV, there is nothing to fix, because it ain't broken.

So my only question for myself and for many of the webmasters here is simple: With a dramatic drop in traffic and a corresponding drop in income, how long can we hold on in the "hoping" mode, until it's obviously clear that the fat lady has in fact sung her final notes?

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

[Mal_Jones]

I hope they have some very sophisticated methods for ensuring that a site hasn't been targeted by a take-down campaign.

Chaps you seem to missing the point here. Google has taken over a year to build this new algo and has now set it loose in the UK and other English sites. The fact is the algo is taking out legitimate sites as well as rubbish sites but to counteract this negative Google is asking for feedback. This algo is stated by Google to be a learning algo so why not help them along by giving them feedback. I very much doubt if you block a domain this will have a difference on sites rank alone, but if many block a domain then I believe that website would be worthy of a manual visit by Google anti spam team. Once the reported data is collected they can tweek the algo which I believe will release many sites that have wrongly lost traffic in this update.

Think about this , if you were to build a brand new site that had thousands of pages would you not ask your visitors to report bugs in the site?

Anyway ,to Finish for the evening I would just like to make it clear that none of my sites have been affected by this Panda update or any other updates since Google was launched. Maybe I'm one step ahead of google or just plain lucky but I feel for those legitimate site owners that are experiencing a massive drop in traffic period.

[Asia_Expat]

how long can we hold on in the "hoping" mode, until it's obviously clear that the fat lady has in fact sung her final notes?

I'm already digging out some old plans for an RTA site.

The fact is the algo is taking out legitimate sites as well as rubbish sites but to counteract this negative Google is asking for feedback.

I've not been taken out completely and much of my ranks are still as good as they were. I've certainly not been hit with a site wide penalty... but my key, popular pages have taken a serious hit. I don't get it. Where do I submit my feedback? I sincerely hope these people are reading WW.

[crobb305]

I sincerely hope these people are reading WW.

They're still on their endorphin high from the power trip.

[Leosghost]

@Mal_Jones
Like yourself I haven't been hurt by panda..and have sailed through Googles updates and dances once I realised how to do so ..however your suggestion of

but if many block a domain then I believe that website would be worthy of a manual visit by Google anti spam team.

In spite of the deafening silence by Matt Cutts on the subject of ehow.

I hardly think that Google need a mass "block" click by WebmasterWorld members or any other group to know that ehow exists, and what its model is, and how it creates its "articles"..

Actually its not far from being a manually sourced version of Google..

ehow is also the only site I have ever seen in the serps where Google actually has a separate search box below ehow's serp entry* inviting you to "search ehow"! ..and the landing page has custom search by "guess who?"...

Remix other peoples content and present it in a clean interface with a few ads on..

* to see this ..type "ehow" into Google's search box ..and ehow is the first answer ..and right below is another search box..

ehow is IMO whitelisted ..because Joe and Jane average surfer like it ( it is clean ..not too many ads..short words ..a few paragraphs and you have an "answer"..)..it looks clean in "preview" Joe and Jane "trust" ehow ( like they trust wikipedia )...and G "likes" the huge, consistent revenue ehow generates for G.

Anyone who thinks that webmasters as a group can down vote ehow faster than surfers can "like" it are dreaming.

G will "regrade" ehow when it suits the plex ( maybe when they have an equivalent version of their own ready .? or when they buy demand media ? ) ..but certainly not because we complain or vote it down.

[edited by: Leosghost at 8:45 pm (utc) on Apr 12, 2011]

[Ruben]

The only remedy is to make your business independent of Google. I tried it, but it's pretty hard if you rely on writing unique articles.

Since Google has so much power and they are almost unreachable the quality of life for webmasters has become more and more stressfull.

The sword of Damocles is hanging 24/7 over a webmaster. It really sucks!

[rlange]

Leosghost wrote:
ehow is also the only site I have ever seen in the serps where Google actually has a separate search box below ehow's serp entry* inviting you to "search ehow"!

I've seen that for another site that I'm aware of. I wouldn't take that as any kind of bias toward eHow on Google's part. Google seems to display it for sites that use the Google Custom Search feature.

--
Ryan

[edited by: rlange at 8:50 pm (utc) on Apr 12, 2011]

[Mal_Jones]

Anyone who thinks that webmasters as a group can down vote ehow faster than surfers can "like" it are dreaming.

I did not suggest that ALL webmasters vote ehow down I suggested that we as webmaster and in the know, do our bit to enhance Google's results by helping google see the error off there ways. If a surfer sees the content on ehow as relevant even though its scraped I can conclude that Google is doing a good job of ranking relevant content scraped from other sites as relevant. I am not a dreamer either so back off please...........

Given that this update has hurt many sites, there arn't many webmaster in this forums complaining are there, or are you all spamers?

[onepointone]

ehow is IMO whitelisted

Maybe not whitelisted, but I only see a few other sites have that extra searchbox. Example: Wikipedia, Microsoft. Other big or important sites like Apple, Amazon, Adobe, ...etc. don't have it.

I don't think ehow is going anywhere. G probably looks at it like the McDonalds of content.

People looove fast food. The minority that want a gourmet burger (or indepth content), well they they will just have to look a little harder.

[edited by: onepointone at 8:55 pm (utc) on Apr 12, 2011]

[crobb305]

ehow is IMO whitelisted

Speaking of E-How,

I just noticed today, for the first time ever, .gov links in the Reference sections are followable. I only see this on .gov links (for the sample of the E-How Money pages I have checked).

Am I hallucinating or has it always been this way? Seems odd, suspicious, etc. You name it.