Panda is a brilliant move. Here is one BIG reason why

[My_Media]

Hi All,
My site consider midsize to large with pre-panda traffic of 60k unique/day. Am sure that most of us feel the frustration. My site now hangs on life support of 18k/day and declining weekly.
But here is one reason why Google make a brilliant move that I give them a A++.

1. After months of searching and fixing my site. Boom! All of a sudden I figure out that is what Google want all webmaster do and be serious about your site and make it as perfect as possible so that the internet will have more and more great content.

Smart move Google. If Bing and Yahoo still sit around and not force webmaster to put some work on this site then they will lose the search war.

[onepointone]

If Bing and Yahoo still sit around and not force webmaster to put some work on this site then they will lose the search war.

Most people SEO for google. Those "improved" sites will still be indexed and ranked by Bing/Yahoo. They probably won't be lowered in SERP's for improving.

So in that sense, google did their work for them.

[koan]

be serious about your site

The problem being we don't know what "improving" our site means in their eyes, especially if that site was fine to begin with. The more "serious" my sites were (as in putting effort and sweat and soul into it), the more pandalized they got.

For example, removing thin pages like categories, comments or tags pages is not for the benefit of users, but their index. Now if they said "W3C compliance will give you bonus points", "Don't use too many affilate links", "Don't use too many slow loading widgets" or "Don't put ads above the fold", it would be clear, and an actual force for improvement on the web.

[TheMadScientist]

Great post My_Media ... I'm sure you'll get jumped all over for it, but it's the same theory I've been working with for quite a while and have actually been waiting for the day the algo would start catching up with what I've been trying to do for a long time ... I only work on a handful of sites for a reason, and it's not because I couldn't build great automation and replication, but imo it's the wrong direction for the long-run, and I think getting into the review, product and/or regurgitation game is a dead-end too ... I think one of the keys to long term success is building something different and unique, but from what I've seen most people don't do that ... (It's so much faster and easier to build regurgitated automated content it's not even funny.) ... I could easily build 100 automated sites in the time it takes me to build one and I could easily create another site like someone else has and try to out do them, but that's not the direction I think is best for the long-term ... I'm sure there are many who can claim better earnings from their sites than I can today, but I wonder who will be ahead in 3, 5 or 10 years? Only time will tell, but I've been waiting a long time for something like this update ... I actually thought it would happen sooner.

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 8:03 am (utc) on Apr 24, 2011]

[zehrila]

In that case, should not almost 70 to 80 of websites on internet should have had been pandalized? In my niche, i can almost point out 10 sites which are nothing but junk, but they are not pandalized.

[Roaming Gnome]

^^
Agreed.

Maybe Panda is Google's way of trying to clean up the Net. They dropped little crumbs like "thin content" and all of a sudden - Webmasters are adding text, deleting pages, going over pages of past work with fine toothed combs... Right now Google has us jumping through hoops and we dont know if we will get a prize for it.

[TheMadScientist]

Just to expand on what I was saying before, in many cases of webmaster complaints I see what seems to be essentially 'what everyone else is doing' ... Yes, there are some twists, but mostly they're what someone else has, because there are very few originators of ideas and products, and imo it's like the difference between Starbucks and Tully's in the area I'm in ... Starbucks, the 'original' ALWAYS pays for the 'A' location (afaik), but Tully's theory for years (from what I've heard from people in the industry) has been to build in the 'B' location and make money off the 'Starbucks Overflow' ... Since the economy has turned, Starbucks has slowed new locations built in this area, but more than one Tully's I know of has closed ... The difference in web terms? One is Amazon, the other is the affiliate ... Tully's doesn't have anything 'unique' or 'original' to offer really, so they try to ride the coat tails of the 'real thing' ... If Starbucks 'slipped' and stopped improving, expanding, 'doing better' there would be much more room for Tully's, but they're not doing that, and neither is Amazon.

There's not much room for the non-originators, the non-updaters, or the complacent on the Internet ... I think people would be way better off if they quit complaining about Google's changes and really looked at their sites and ask themselves how they really compare to those who are competing for the same position ... IMO it would be way more productive...

[RichTC]

This is a joke of a thread

The update has hit a lot of quality websites and the jury is out if quality has improved. Meanwhile there are companies having to layoff staff.

The only positive out of this is that as they have given a lot of publishers and large corporates a big boost (see the winners list) and these are the ones that buy volume adwords and push the keywords prices up hence they no longer will need to buy as much traffic now and this should help lower PPC prices in the future and hit googles profit line.

The most annoying thing for me is that the adsence reps were all for promoting that webmasters should carry as many adsence spots as they could and now the search team are hitting those same sites with this update.

No doubt they will have tested the effect on profits before the roll out but i dont see any quality improvements - all i see is a deck shuffle with a lots of news coverage which helps promote them as a search engines - maybe this was the objective?

[TheMadScientist]

Meanwhile there are companies having to layoff staff.

And there are other companies hiring ... They still have 10 results.

The update has hit a lot of quality websites and the jury is out if quality has improved.

Rubbish ... Simple logic dictates if the update as an overall whole was not an improvement, as indicated, not by webmasters or what webmasters think is 'better' or 'worse', but by Google's visitors they would have rolled it back and made adjustments as they have done numerous times in the past.

As Shaddows so well stated in another thread, they are a company with a long-term vision, unlike many webmasters, and they will take a hit on profitability today to improve their core product, search, because if their core product is no longer 'top notch' they will end up losing.

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 9:02 am (utc) on Apr 24, 2011]

[Shatner]

This would be a good post... if we had any idea what Panda wants.

We don't know.

For all we know they want big brand names and don't care about the quality of the sites.

As the above poster already mentioned, a lot of really great sites have been hit and are now being replaced by garbage sites.

Of course this also benefitted a lot of great sites and killed some bad ones, but it's not like it has really across the board improved quality.

Save this post until we actually have some idea of what Google actually wants, and when some of those good sites recover. Then I'm 100% on board with it.

[TheMadScientist]

...a lot of really great sites...

In whose opinion?
Webmasters and site owners or Google's visitors?

Google's visitors opinions are the only ones that count!

Your opinion doesn't count.
My opinion doesn't count.
Only Google's visitors opinions count!

[Shatner]

>>In whose opinion?

Whose opinion is it that they're bad sites?

Outside of Google of course. :)

We had a thread on the subject. Most of the sites listed there were generally very quality sites... not from the Google perspective but from the objective user perspective. I realize they are two completely different things.

Which is my point. Google's view of what is good and the user's view of what is good may not be 100% in sync right now. Which makes this post premature.

Ideally Google's view of what is good should also match the objective, INFORMED user view of what is good. When we know that's happening, then this post will be correct. Right now we don't know that's happening. You're just assuming it is because Google says so.

[TheMadScientist]

I really don't understand, because I've seen many of the sites that were 'wrongly demoted' and I didn't see anything 'special' there...

You're just assuming it is because Google says so.

If it's only an assumption, then it's a much more valid assumption than assuming the update is 'a step back', when they say it's an improvement and they're the ones with access to the data, isn't it?

Where's the logic in the assumption of 'great sites were demoted', and when Google looked at the visitor behavior data they realized their visitors were unhappy, so they left the update in place rather than rolling it back? There isn't any...

Caffeine and Big Daddy were incompatible infrastructures and could not be stored in the same place, yet Caffeine rolled and reverted numerous times (meaning we would 'see Caffeine' and then we wouldn't), which indicates (to me anyway) if the Panda Update was not providing 'favorable visitor reactions' as a whole, they could have rolled it back, but they didn't ... They said it's an improvement instead ... If you haven't, go have a look at the old update threads and see if their past behavior indicates they are in any way 'afraid' to roll back an update ... I've read almost everyone of them over the last 8 years, and they have rolled back numerous updates in the past, not left them in place after an initial 'oops' and called them a success, only to hope their visitors were somehow happier.

They didn't roll Panda back and they called it a success...

How many time in the past have they 'not quite had it right' when they pushed an update and rolled it back? Their past behavior indicates they are in no way afraid to say, either explicitly or implicitly, 'not quite right' and rolled back an update ... My 'assumption' based on their actions and statements seems fairly valid based on the information we have access to, doesn't it?

Ideally Google's view of what is good should also match the objective, INFORMED user view of what is good.

You seem to be saying Google should 'dictate' what their visitors want to see or need to see ... Is that the case? IMO it's the other way around ... Google's visitors dictate what Google should show more of or less of...

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 9:39 am (utc) on Apr 24, 2011]

[viggen]

imo the only brilliant reason why Panda is great is that it hopefully makes many webmaster try harder to liberate themselves from Google, becoming less dependant to them and puts them into a position to do what they think is good for their visitors and not someone somewhere in Mountain View...

[TheMadScientist]

And that would actually be a good thing, imo ... Only 28% of eHow's traffic comes from Google, imo, because they run a business, not a website...

[TheMadScientist]

Since we're on the subject of statistical data and Google 'lost market share' right after Panda, there's an interesting little phenomenon when results are better ... People need to search less, not more ... IMO There is statistical data that seems to indicate people need to search less since Panda rolled than they did before (meaning the results are better and the update was a success, just like they said), but of course data is open to interpretation ... Personally, I know I always search more when I CAN'T find what I'm looking for than I do when I CAN, doesn't everyone? I could be totally different and most people might continue searching after finding the correct result, but my guess is it's fairly normal to stop when you find the answer, which could very well mean Panda was actually a huge success...

[asabbia]

Only 28% of eHow's traffic comes from Google, imo,.

LOL, you are completly wrong

[TheMadScientist]

LOL, you are completly wrong

You're correct ... 28% of their REVENUE ... Thanks for the polite correction!

Reference here: [webmasterworld.com...]
See tedster's post.

I'm so close to done posting here for a while. It's absolutely pointless. I already know what I'm sharing. I can't remember the last time I asked a question other than for a reference, but I continue to get jumped on, for sharing. I can defend almost every single statement I make, and it's quite obvious my posts are HIGHLY scrutinized ... It's not worth it ... I don't get paid to share here ... Really, I can't make a misstatement without some LOL bs instead of a polite correction? I feel for Matt Cutts and the people at Google who are constantly scrutinized, this is ridiculous...

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 10:46 am (utc) on Apr 24, 2011]

[RichTC]

As i just posted on another threadL-

"if you are going to keep feeding a lion every day you have to take the risk that one day that Lion might bite your arm off or eat you whole"

The problem with your "Quality Control" argument is that on the one side of google their adsence reps have been telling webmasters to increase ad exposure to Google and on the other side the search team have hit many of those sites as part of the algo for following their advice!

At the moment, Google is gaining from a lot of publicity over this update, they will also lose adsence partners at its cost but only once this all dies down, will we then see the true picture - they COULD have just cut profits and NOT in fact improved anything and i think thats likely because i for one dont see any Major improvement - their is ZERO evidence to support that search is improved as a result other than google telling us it is!

I agree with the earlier poster "this thread is VERY premature" and thats because results over period are still unknown. At base level this is simply a deck shuffle - the next two sets of google results should show more

[TheMadScientist]

You're right RichTC ... I'm done here for a while.

You should check some of Shaddows recent posts, followed by tedster's.
I think they cover exactly what I'm not going to repost here.
I actually know they do...

Read more, think more, less emotion ... You'll rank better.

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 10:34 am (utc) on Apr 24, 2011]

[walkman]

1. After months of searching and fixing my site. Boom! All of a sudden I figure out that is what Google want all webmaster do and be serious about your site and make it as perfect as possible so that the internet will have more and more great content.

So, when did your traffic return? If it hasn't maybe you're jumping from joy a bit too early. You NEED to design for Google or else you are toast. That's the bottom line: put the text a certain way, add some useless text that makes sense to Googlebot, get links etc etc. We see it everyday and those tier 2 sites are making a killing.

If I get bumped because a better site came along, I can understand but some things make zero sense.

imo the only brilliant reason why Panda is great is that it hopefully makes many webmaster try harder to liberate themselves from Google, becoming less dependant to them and puts them into a position to do what they think is good for their visitors and not someone somewhere in Mountain View...

AMEN and promote their competition. Google is schizophrenic, and greedy, and vindictive.

They didn't roll Panda back and they called it a success...

How many time in the past have they 'not quite had it right' when they pushed an update and rolled it back? Their past behavior indicates they are in no way afraid to say, either explicitly or implicitly, 'not quite right' and rolled back an update ... My 'assumption' based on their actions and statements seems fairly valid based on the information we have access to, doesn't it?

Because panda was a rushed PUBLIC RELATIONS move to answer to the media bashing it got. A $200 Billion company under attack by everyone cannot afford to admit that they screwed up their major product that produces some 98% of their earnings. If Matt Cutts being outranked by scrappers for his own article is right, I guess Panda was a success.

Rule #: Never take corporate PR at full value.
Rule #2: Angry webmasters will point them out, they aren't in the mood to feel generous.
Rule #3: Most people don't notice if SERPS are a 100 quality level or 95 or even 90. Some do, most by far will not, so Google can leave Panda on and not worry about admitting failure (If Panda was a failure).

[johnhh]

and make it as perfect as possible

so you build Panada perfect sites - don't bother about the content - just scrape it from somewhere else and add one adsense site ..

So if you have a site with real original content that took years to write and develop and there is an error in your css or you have one original photo too many - thats too bad then !

[pageoneresults]

Most people SEO for Google.

Speak for yourself. How does one SEO for Google? When you perform SEO, it is for ALL User-Agents, not just Google. I don't understand that statement. SEO is no different whether you're targeting Google, Bing, Yahoo!, InfoSeek, AltaVista, Inktomi, etc. Not much has changed in this area over the years. It has gotten much more technical but the basics are still the same.

Most people SEO for Google.

Unfortunately I think that is what got some folks into trouble.

[Reno]

what Google want all webmaster do and be serious about your site and make it as perfect as possible

Most webmasters have always been "serious", but we had a big problem ~ Google.

Google is one of, if not THE, primary reason that webmasters were hesitant to work on their sites.

This forum alone is filled with many many references to the fear that webmasters had developed in changing/adding anything to their pages. The fear was fundamental ~ if they made any changes, they'd get nailed with a ranking drop, so people left well enough alone.

Did changing anything always result in a hit by Google? Of course not, but it happened SO often it became a fear factor. Even the most cursory review of postings here in the archives will show that to be the case.

Google's attitude reminds me of some governments that shall remain unnamed: Foment unrest in a country so troops can be sent in to suppress the unrest.

In Google's case, it's: Create fear (their infamous FUD policy) so no one knows what to do about their sites, then send in the artillery (Panda) to punish anyone who did not know what to do about their sites.

"Smart" is not what I'd call this move ~ "Manipulative" comes closer to the mark, IMO.

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

[My_Media]

Seriouly, I hate Google as much as you guys. I am so frustrated that Google gives us nothing but a close mouth. Just that it leads me to find so many little problems like broken links, delete thin pages, and etc..
Guys, we all frustrated and I also have to layoff people, it just that now my site is cleaner and efficient then before.
Since Google attacked mid-large site first and let the little ones play for a while. I am sure that very soon after we weed out the unwanted things on your site then I am sure Google want all of us back. It's like a slap and a kiss thing.
Can you imagine if I tell you next week after all my efforts pays off and my site got back to 60k/day, then all the webmaster will start tuning and BAM!
the internet goes viral and start cleaning itself then the whole internet cleaner and lastly Google wins. Google win without moving a finger and we all do the work for him. You tell me if this is not brilliant!
LOL, think of it. For years I have never work so hard on my site and still working on it. Thanks and no thanks to Google. I still hate G for left us in the dark but that is the brilliant point or Manipulative.
I will let all of you know if anything works. I have totally removed all the ads and nothing buy contents which I paid $100+ per articles written by real licensed professionals. So i just as serious as any of you cause I am lossing thousands per day with no ads but has to be done. Hope you all can bear with me and I will find out if Google is blind and drunk.

[Reno]

it just that now my site is cleaner and efficient then before

...and a big part of that is because, to quote Bob Dylan, "when you ain't got nothin', you got nothing to lose".

Panda is crushing people. Good, clean, useful websites are going to go OUT OF BUSINESS if things to do not change. So we got nothing to lose by doing the re-vamps now.

We would have been doing those updates/revisions all along if not for their deeply offensive and damaging FUD. Google's history of behavior caused this disaster ~ the ramifications to individuals, families & businesses are laid squarely at their doorstep.

And yes, IF in fact the internet is in reality a better place in 6 months or a year, then they can get credit for that ~ but I have my doubts, unless they STOP FUD and stop the double talk. If they start speaking clearly and consistently, and if their actions backup their clear & consistent words, THEN things can be better.

Otherwise, look for more of the same...

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

[edited by: Reno at 3:27 pm (utc) on Apr 24, 2011]

[walkman]

Speak for yourself. How does one SEO for Google? When you perform SEO, it is for ALL User-Agents, not just Google. I don't understand that statement. SEO is no different whether you're targeting Google, Bing, Yahoo!, InfoSeek, AltaVista, Inktomi, etc. Not much has changed in this area over the years. It has gotten much more technical but the basics are still the same.

Wow, so you picked a technicality. First, not all search behaved the same over keyword density, links, thin content etc so people focused most on Google. Second, most people target Google with their SEO, how's that? Look at the page titles, text on page, links, link structure...virtually every successful commercial site has adjusted their site to Google /search engines. Design for people might work fine if you're nerdy professor and write a thing here and there, in e-commerce you will be eaten alive by those that adjust their sites for Google. Even journalists now are trained in SEO and choose their words based on they think it will help them to rank.

My_Media, my demotion I believe was over a specific thing that Google and Matt Cutts supported before they hit people very hard with Panda. While pages can always be improved and will never be perfect, I didn't need Google to cut my traffic that much to check 404s.

Obviously if you make double the money 2-3 months of less traffic is worth it but there's no telling what the h*ll will happen with Google and Panda.

Why shouldn't Google cut your traffic for 2 years, then your site will be even better, if 2 months made such a difference.

[nomis5]

Google will never tell us the facts behind Panda, that would have every two bit webmaster designing sites for Panda and we'd all be back to where we started.

Face it, forget Google SEO, design your pages the way you want them to be. The way you think will attract visitors to your site. That's how it all started off until some smart alec worked out that keyword stuffing the title worked wonders.

The logic behind Panda may well be more convoluted than any of us can imagine. And, imo, beating Bing has to be a major part it.

[Reno]

that would have every two bit webmaster designing sites for Panda and we'd all be back to where we started.

I don't get this attitude. If Panda is about rewarding "quality", then how can it can be a bad thing if "two bit webmasters" start designing quality sites? Won't the public come out ahead?

Now admittedly none of us know what Google means by "quality", but assuming THEY know (a big assumption), then it follows that the web will be a better place if they clearly define the term "quality" once & for all, and then back up that definition with consistency.

Unless of course "quality" is just their cover story, and in actuality there's an entire other agenda at work. We don't know what we don't know, so as far as I'm concerned, if they won't spell it out, then ANY explanation for this disaster that is on the table is equally possible, be it "quality", or "profits".

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

[Planet13]

imo the only brilliant reason why Panda is great is that it hopefully makes many webmaster try harder to liberate themselves from Google, becoming less dependant to them and puts them into a position to do what they think is good for their visitors and not someone somewhere in Mountain View...

Exactly!

Being dependent on google is like playing Russian Roulette. It is a VERY bad idea, no matter how well it may have worked in the past.

If you have to layoff employees, then you need to tell them the truth: You, the business owner, made a MAJOR mistake becoming dependent on a company that owes you NOTHING to continually send you free traffic, instead of developing a business model that you can actually control. It was fun while it lasted.

There is a thread in the archives / library with a title like, "relying on google traffic has been destroying businesses since 2003." The poster had gone and researched posts from after the Florida update by web site owners that went down in flames.

It was a bad idea in 2003, and guess what? It is a bad idea in 2011.

When you try to compete in the Church of Google, there is one golden rule: The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

And before complaining about how the government needs to step in and there needs to be more competition, remember this: If it is so hard to rank well in ONE search engine, think of how much harder it will be to rank well in FOUR search engines.

Come up with something that people want that no one else can offer, and there you have a sustainable business model.