Quality According to Google - Official "Guidance" on Panda Update

[netmeg]

Finally a post from Webmaster Central about what Google thinks about quality:

[googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com...]

[Whitey]

There is no reason to think that Panda scoring affects PageRank - no evidence of that at all. It might

I'm seeing pages on effected domains having good backlinks from unaffected sites with original content holding. I'm seeing pages with limited backlinks and original content falling.

I'm seeing site's launched inside a week ranking and holding , with minimal links and good trust signals.

i'm not seeing any applied remedy changing either a page or a site. So I really think a time penalty factor or dampener is in place.

To me, nothings changed , except the levels of detection in the algorithmn calculating the individual and aggregate scores of each page by site and referal to a sum that effects one page or a total site.

From the remedy perspective, I'm seeing a delay in anything moving back on effected sites - so I'm assuming " trust" has to be restored.

With regards to links - ( and I've spoken with a lot of respected and much smarter folks than me over a wide range of client sites , who discount links as part of this Panda update ), i still would consider that in the case of a total site, if enough of the pages fall beneath a score threshold by virtue of a lack of links the site becomes more vulnerable. And i would strongly recommend the need to be " open minded " on the possibility that those pages have limited link referal capability, effecting the " link juice economy of the web"

With regards to the effects. what perplexes me is that Google is often only partially knocking off traffic to producing pages and i have yet to see analysis that strengthens or dismisses the theory that some sort of " traffic throttling" may be occurring.

[doc_z]

Is there any offical statement if quality is assigned to a single page (like PageRank) or to a whole site?

If you look at the "What counts as a high-quality site?" points it seems that they didn't distinguish clearly between page and site. However, for sites like Knol or Ebay it might be a significant difference.

[tedster]

Only that individual pages are scored first, and then the rest of the pages on the site can be affected if the domain has many "low quality" pages.

I'm certain that domains such as ebay.com, blogspot.com and so on are treated with an understanding that they are an amalgamation of individual owners rather than one big "website."

[elsewhen]

amalgamation of individual owners rather than one big "website."

it seems to me that hubpages, suite101, ezinearticles, associatedcontent fit this description even though they were pandalized.

so, ebay/blogspot get a pass because they don't edit the submissions of individual owners. does it follow that the pandalized publishing platforms should consider halting any editing controls they have in the attempt to get treated like ebay/blogspot?

[indyank]

elsewhen, My take is google wanted panda to run only against certain sites or type of sites. Blogspot and several other sites were not their targets.

But this is what is proving to be the tragedy as letting panda loose on only certain types of sites make such sites look even poorer than sites on blogger or the copied content on yahoo answers. The biggest scrapers are on those platforms but google decided to ignore them.

An algorithm that is intended to only act against a few type of sites seems to be a very poor decision and an extremely biased one.

[sundaridevi]

Seems like most of the comments here are still focussed on off-site factors and linking.

What I got out of this blog post is:

Would you trust the information presented in this article?

Google has expanded its network of "trusted" sites that give your site "quality" by linking to you (the only positive source I see here of off-site boost offered by panda)

Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?

. Do you use SSL, does your site have its own certificate?

Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?

This may apply to article farms. But it could also be saying that even if google does identify the original source of the article, if you don't police it and do DMCA takedown on violaters, it can be detrimental to your SERPs health.

Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?

Google loves ads. That's how they make money. Look for intrusive types of ads that google doesn't like.

Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?

This could indicate the possibility of analysis of site architecture or just the presence of html errors, or lack of site validation. Personally I've suspected for some time that CSS layout sites rank more highly.

These things are all quite easy to quantify algorithmically and seem much more plausible to me than an army of manual laborers ranking site quality.

[dickbaker]

Just noticed that one of my main keyword competitors has been Pandalized. His site now sits on the very bottom of page #14 instead of page #1. It'll be interesting to see if/when he recovers.

Are there factors about your competitor's site that are common to what's been discussed here? Anything that is different from what's already been discussed?

[kidder]

The post by Google is clearly some sort of late April fools joke right? Quality? [webmasterworld.com...] While search for today's widget auctions I'm finding empty pages for overweight teen widgets.. And results from countries halfway around the world. What a crock.

[graeme_p]

@kidder, I could not agree more. The SERPS for almost everything I search for a full of stuff from ehow.

A purely non-webmaster example: I looked up "remove x stains from surface y" and the results included an ehow article on "how to remove x stains from surface z"", that mostly consisted of filler about how z was a commonly used and what it is used for (something I cannot imagine anyone in the world not knowing).

[chrisv1963]

The post by Google is clearly some sort of late April fools joke right?

I think it is a joke. Anyway, I give up.

Now I'm seeing a site with images stolen from my website and from other websites outrank me. Just stolen images, navigation, less than 20 words of crap text and 2 Adsense ads. QUALITY content according to Panda!

Actually this is good news. I no longer need to pay professionals to write good content and I no longer need to pay for pictures! Just copy and paste and make several small websites (since Panda seems to target large sites especially) with Adsense on it and you have a business!

[Reno]

I think it is a joke. Anyway, I give up.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was a joke. We could all say "Good one Google ~ ha ha ha ~ you sure got us that time ~ you folks sure are funny". If only.

Of course, the exact opposite is the case. In fact, we know that they are on record on multiple occasions as being very pleased with Panda, and are saying it's working as planned. So let's not kid ourselves ~ this is what they want ~ so I credit them for being candid about THAT at least. Anyone who still thinks they'll reverse themselves is praying to the Tooth Fairy ~ ain't gonna happen.

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

[ascensions]

My 2nd grade daughter just brought her homework home: A book to read on Giant Pandas.... I'm currently crying as she's reading it.

Did you know they eat 50lbs of Bamboo a day?

[Simsi]

Think of it as our take at encoding what we think our users want.

I read this article not so much as seeing it as a response to tackling what has already gone (Panda) as much as what is yet to come. Future-proofing.

It strikes me reasonable that this provides a target template for future algo templates, bit by bit, gradually working towards the goals laid out in the document.

It all struck me as good advice, all of which is pretty much relevant to users and, as algos get more intelligent, more relevant to ranking too.

Panda may have been a significant step forward in tackling this "philosophy" but I'd guess it's a very small part of the bigger picture yet to unfold over the coming months and years.

[tedster]

Give that man a cigar! Everyone who read Simsi's post is officially not allowed to complain about future algorithm updates... except when they're defective ;)

[ken_b]

except when they're defective ;)

When what is defective, the complainer or the algorithm update? :)

[brinked]

tedster, googles algo updates are only defective if they cause my sites to lose rankings. Otherwise, I agree with everything they are doing.

[kidder]

I think the quality should be delivered in the organic results not just the paid stuff, they can do it but I imagine they need to constantly run the blender through the organics to keep the revenue numbers on target. Does anyone disagree?

[tedster]

You know I disagree. Organic rankings do not use revenues as a KPI - it's a long term play, not a short term profit thing. I think Panda proved that in spades.

[Broadway]

I was just over at SERoundTable looking for info about Panda (there's nothing new over there).

One of their articles talked about how Matt Cuts said that Panda wasn't a continuously running algo, but instead one just run at select times.

The SERoundTable text suggested that they had run it 3 times. Panda 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1.

But that's not really right. They may have run the front end of Panda three times, but since no significant sized group has come out of it, they haven't run the back end yet.

If a large number of sites were coming out of Panda and I wasn't, then I would be concerned. Instead, I'm a part of the trapped pack and it's just painful.

Conceivably Panda is a black hole, once you're trapped, your dead. But more likely it isn't. This is more like a "we're mad at you, we're in control" kind of thing.

I look forward to when they actually do run Panda again, at both ends.

[Broadway]

I got my most recent free-money coupon for Adwords today. It was for $100. Weren't they previously just for $75?

Anyway, I wasn't sure which mailing list my address came from, the Adsense publisher list or the Pandalized website list.

[kidder]

Tedster, maybe your right but thats just how it feels to me. Train the monkeys to click on adwords because that's the better quality result.

[Whitey]

Panda is a black hole, once you're trapped, your dead

It's certainly that, but i do believe some folks will see some light ( when / how ... who knows ).

[indyank]

Many pages on my panda affected site are ranking on Bing at around the same positions they used to be on Google SERPS before Panda!

[viggen]

Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site

...so Sony`s (Playstation) website shall be loose ranking soon, right?

[Reno]

Panda is a black hole, once you're trapped, your dead

If that is true, and it certainly feels that way, then it is fatally flawed. However, it may still be a bit early in the game ~ after a full 6 months pass, I'll have a better view on that judgement.

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

[Broadway]

Gosh, I hope it's not 6 months. Anyway, like you Reno, I think it's early in the game and many will easily escape Panda (via whatever changes they've made).

I think once this happens, in hindsight, it will be easy to see what the Panda factors are.

I'm sure it is multi-variate, but also transparent and decipherable. It must be a combination of a bunch of tweeks, that build up into a cumulative score (that's why so many fairly decent sites got snagged, they weren't bad in a big way, just in a minor-bad, cumulative way).

The Panda-freeze is in play on sites that have been hit because it's the only way google can keep from showing their cards (and keep the SEO's at bay).

For many, Panda will continue to be a problem, for others just a passed obstacle.

For example, say a Panda factor is content (as in poor grammar and spelling). An article farm can't fix this, so they will continue to be hit by Panda criteria (the article farm has no ability to fix up all of their content, because they didn't write it). In comparison, on a site where there is content-control, this can be fixed. So, at some point in time (with effort), they will escape Panda.

If this conjecture is accurate, then the Panda algo has done what it was designed to do. It permanently damages a "mill" site but honest-intent sites (if they put in the effort, which an honest-intent site would be expected to do) have an avenue of escape.

That's what I'm spending all of my time doing, making general improvements with my crippled site (and hopefully I've already addressed the issues that triggered my penalty). I'm not looking for any "hidden secrets" that "must" be the Panda key.