PANDA International - Data on Winners & Losers

[tedster]

This afternoon the SearchMetrics blog released their data on the international wave of the Panda Update - affecting English Language search. The article includes data for 100 losers and 20 winners, along with some dramatic graphs.

The data was collated between the 5th & 12th of April 2011 and we can definitely confirm that the update has hit the UK – in a big way.

Surprising is that ehow.co.uk and ehow.com has lost more than 50% in visibility and the alarm bells are probably going off at Qype.co.uk who’ve lost a whopping 96%! A lot of price comparison sites like ciao.co.uk (in a lawsuite with Google) and dooyoo.co.uk also lost nearly 90% of visibility. [blog.searchmetrics.com...]

This thread is for discussing the data - if you wish to share editorial opinion, positive or critical, please post in our other thread: Google PANDA rolls out WorldWide [webmasterworld.com]

[Shatner]

>>>There also is evidence that a second layer of changes rolled through the google.com results, too. I'm working to get some hard data on that, too - but if anyone has something about google.com changes it would be welcome here.

I've talked to several people already who weren't hit by Panda the first time through Google.com, but were today.

[Shatner]

A lot of the sites on this new list fit the mold of garbage, content farms. Some don't.

It's still seems completely random, as did the old version.

[zoltan]

I got a confirmation from my AdSense rep that AdSense or ad placement does not influence rankings. "They are not related in any way." In fact, she asked me to put more ad blocks to my site and she approved more ad blocks for my account.

[Shatner]

>>>I got a confirmation from my AdSense rep that AdSense or ad placement does not influence rankings. "They are not related in any way." In fact, she asked me to put more ad blocks to my site and she approved more ad blocks for my account.

Well that's huge. I don't think anyone else has actually gotten them to say one way or another.

Are we sure this rep knows what she's talking about?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

In my opinion the stats look good, I don't disagree with the figures being good for the internet overall.

[chrisv1963]

What is amazing is the spammers paradise - blogspot.com seen as good quality by this algo

Blogspot is a Google property ...

[walkman]

In my opinion the stats look good, I don't disagree with the figures being good for the internet overall.

For every one of those how many small time publishers and site owners got screwed, possibly as false positives?

[koan]

Are we sure this rep knows what she's talking about?

I have this faint notion that most of us probably know more about Google Search than Adsense reps. They must be in sales, not on the development side.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

It's sad though, how these changes have hit quite so hard. I imagine many peoples lives are gonna be destroyed.

High quality sites that took a loss have the option of contacting Google, if that's you do it so that they can work out the wrinkles.

[zerillos]

hey, about the graphs in the post on searchmetrics.com...
why do you think they all had a spike on week 03 2011?

[vandread]

I can definitely say that ads are a factor that may reduce your quality score, but it is not the only one. I know of sites with little or no ads that have been affected, and sites with 4-6 ad units on the page that were not. I highly doubt that Adsense plays a special role, it is just seen on a lot of sites and that's why many assume it must have something to do with it. Ads are ads are ads.

It is an algorithm for god's sake. May be complex but in the end, it is all about getting your site above that threshold that rates your site as low quality.

I'd suggest you take a look at your site in 1024x768 and check the ad to content ratio. If you got more content than ads there then ads are not your problem. Please note that I'm not talking about in content ads, affiliate links for instance.

[Dan01]

From Ted's link:

High-quality sites algorithm goes global, incorporates user feedback
Monday, April 11, 2011 at 12:00 PM

I don't know if it will help me or not. LOL I guess all we can do is hope.

[vandread]

Dan01, well it can only hurt you or be neutral, can it? There is no "This site is awesome button".

[vandread]

Oh, I may have that wrong, maybe it is the +1button ;)

[potentialgeek]

> ezinearticles.com -93.69%

This site has been in the news lately with the company's president responding to their losses.

After years of skepticism, last fall I researched their site carefully for a week, and looked closely at the results their members were getting. I was impressed. So I finally relented, and dipped my toe in article marketing.

I just checked a few articles which had been top ten in SERPs for months. I can't find them anywhere.

[NetsocietySeo]

Some of the sites that got hit have really surprised me. Why do you think sites like qype.co.uk (lots of UGC) and justtheflight.co.uk (yes; affiliate, but loads of unique content) have been struck?

[walkman]

BTW, these number are bunk. UniverseToday posted here right after Panda and said no way was his traffic down as much as they said and ezinearticles said the same last week or so.

[driller41]

There are cetainly a lot of article aggregators on the losing list which is consistent with the goals of Panda and a lot of media sites with original content on the winners list.

Can't see what national lottery would rank for though and why promote ebay?

Can't help feeling uneasy that google has too much power currently.

[Shaddows]

why promote ebay?

Don't mistake effect for intent.

Their POV is that they produced a new set of ranking criteria, albeit informed by exemplars of both virtue and vice. If ebay more closely resembles quality, Google can hardly give them a different score manually.

[Martin Ice Web]

Greetings from Germany,

since Panda the german serps are full of amazon stuff. Sometimes Spot #1 - #3. Ebay follows straight away. Most of the other positions are price listing sites, witch is the complete opposite of the UK and US serp observations. The close rest of the first page are mainly manufacturers, where you cant buy the widgets.
That is very odd, because they don't give any additional value. If there is any "normal" sites in serps, it's full with link listings, H1 Tags and keyword stuffing AND FULL of -> ads <-.
And if I compare two different searchs in a niche, most of the positions will have the same spot, it's like they are nailed on this position.

[pageoneresults]

This site has been in the news lately with the company's president responding to their losses.

Ummm, that site is involved in things that you don't see on the surface. They deserved what they got.

[Pass the Dutchie]

BTW, these number are bunk.

certainly questionable however it is clear that many of these sites I have checked host a signnificant amount of duplicate content.

Based on this I would advise anyone who re-sells products, hotels etc to avoid using the same content found on manufacturer’s sites, hotel descriptions etc and to start writing their own original/reviews or face getting Pandasized out of the index. I would also say that Google is notoriously sketchy when determining the original publisher so if there is room for index tweaks it would most likely be in this area and not just a temporary punishment. At first glance this update seems to be not so much about punishing sites but about cleaning up the index. If that is the case doing nothing and hoping things improve (unless it is a genuine glitch - if so notify Google) would seem pointless.

The question is, does one re-write content on existing URLs (still keeping the main domain) or does one drop the pages, set up new URL (possible 301) and start fresh, origional internal pages? This is crucial as recovery time is what it’s all about now. Time for Google to time in.

[Pass the Dutchie]

@Martin Ice Web - Greetings

I am suprised you are seeing Panda updates on .de SERPS as the update should, for the time being, only effect ENGLISH results.

[Pass the Dutchie]

oh and sites which regurgitate news....

[danimalSK]

These numbers are pretty far off. I know first hand that a couple of the sites they are reporting at 80 to 90% "visibility" loss are down about 30% in actual traffic.

Most of these sites (e.g. qype and reviewcenter) operate deep in the tail, so whilst they may have lost 96% of the head terms that SearchMetrics track, those head terms only constitute around 20% of their overall traffic.

No doubt Google "King of Scrapers" Places is still using Qype content, even though it deems it a content farm in the real (or increasingly not so real) serps....

[johnhh]

I never believe any statistics without looking at the methods used for collection and analysis of the data - I don't even believe my own stats !

However , whatever the flaws in the figures comparisions should be indicative of change - but comparing one day with the next is not indicative of a trend.

As posted above we were down 30% yesterday - but its too early - wait a couple of weeks.

Of the uk sites mentioned in the report most of the voucher codes sites are pure affiliate sites and have used slightly underhand tactics to achieve maximum cookie drop.

Even given that 60-80% traffic loss from SERPS ? um not sure about that !

[Martin Ice Web]

@Dutchie,

I can´t imagine that, cause at the same time panda was released, serps in .de got dramatically shaked up.
Every time, when on WebmasterWorld some users report new drops cause of panda, i recognized it for myin germany located
site. Referals are -40% and jump from on to the other day. Maybe it`s something like an overall effect of the panda UK and us devaluation of sites?
It+s like goomazon pushed well known resellers, all others are vanished.
I noticed that goomazon is not able to regonize the real search intention. e.g. preior to panda, when is was looking for vba code, goomazon gave me a lot of vba ( visual basic for application ) site with nice code. Nowadays all of them are gone.

[robert76]

Did the US price comparison sites get hit when Panda 1.0 first rolled out?

No, definitely not. They stood out even more with a particular one hitting the top result in many instances.

[flashdash]

Looking at the top 20 winners, it looks like G is favoring news sites, media (mostly video) sharing sites and blogs. there exceptions of course, but that's what I see in common with the winners.

Also, I think G is taking this oportunity to kickout competitors sites, like price comparison and the like.

[browsee]

Ciao is Microsoft's property(they lost 93%), there is already an antitrust complaint against Google in Europe. This would really help Microsoft to win the antitrust battle.