Why Haven't Sites Come Back from Panda? Matt Cutts Tries to Explain

[walkman]

This is a rush(?) transcript from Dany Sullivan's blog so probably not everything is 100% correct. The italics and bolding are mine.
[searchengineland.com...]

DS: Talking about Panda, says that he’s getting a ton of emails from people who say that scraper sites are now outranking them after Panda.

MC: A guy on my team working on that issue. A change has been approved that should help with that issue. We’re continuing to iterate on Panda. The algorithm change originated in search quality, not the web spam team.
....
DS: Has it changed enough that some people have recovered? Or is it too soon?

MC: The general rule is to push stuff out and then find additional signals to help differentiate on the spectrum. We haven’t done any pushes that would directly pull things back. We have recomputed data that might have impacted some sites. There’s one change that might affect sites and pull things back.

DS: You guys made this post with 22 questions, but it sounds like you’re saying even if you’ve done that, it wouldn’t have helped yet?

MC: It could help as we recompute data. Matt goes on to say that Panda 2.2 has been approved but hasn’t rolled out yet.

DS: Reads an audience question – is site usability being considered as more of a factor?

MC: Panda isn’t directly targeted at usability, but it’s a key part of making a site that people like. Pay attention to it because it’s a good practice, not because Google says so.

Matt mentions 'pull back' but that's nonsense and very disingenuous of him. Pull back to me means letting a previously labeled bad content rank. We're talking about improved sites and content, no need to pull back, just reanalyze it.

So it's clear to me that this is a penalty. Maybe if you got links from every newspaper in the Northern Hemisphere you might escape but for the rest it looks like it depends on Google engineers. It took them 3+ months to admit it.

[HuskyPup]

G can kiss my ass. As I.T. Director I've preset my entire enterprise to Bing.com. My users are all good with using Bing. The SERPs are at least as good as G. I figure my 65 heavy users rack up $3/each per week in PPC clicks. That's $10,140/yr. If my users actually begin to like Bing and change their home preferences, it will cost G 50%+ more.

Can someone confirm/explain this to me since I think I know what has been written but just need a confirmation?

[Swanson]

"Quality is in the eye of the beholder"

That is a great statement that you need to remember - it's only quality if Google thinks it's quality!

Time will tell, however I don't believe that the ads thing makes too much difference.

I say that as I have sites with ridiculously bad ad placements (adsense) with over 50k visits per day, also with thin content.

I think there needs to be other factors that affect the situation for the ads to be an issue.

I do think pagerank and authority does help as all my sites that are fine are PR6+

[Leosghost]

Yes it indeed means what you think it does..countdown to .."the email" 3...2...

[bluntforce]

And what was that earlier comment about internal link structures in Polish websites supposed to communicate? In other words, how does internal link structure affect the way Panda scores a website?

As I recall, Matt Cutts was explaining why Panda was only implemented on English based sites. My interpretation remains that Panda considers link structure, at least in part.

I've been watching one site that Panda hit pretty significantly. No ads, clean design, it appears to have a little over 4,000 inbound links, 100 of which are random sites, then 4,000 links from individual pages on one other topically similar site.

The subject site has about 20 obvious pages, half of which lead to product searches on the site. Search pages consist of content like:
Widgets in Alabama
Widgets in Alaska
Widgets in Arizona
which then lead to pages with content like:
Widgets in County 1
Widgets in County 2
Widgets in County 3

There are 50 states and a little over 3,000 U.S. counties so the site has more than 3,000 pages with very shallow content consisting primarily of keywords and regions. The ten or so informational pages I saw reminded me of EHow and contained factual errors.

Just one site so it's just an observation.

[supercyberbob]

In the interview that the first post in this thread links to, MC acknowledges the scraper issue that is apparently being worked on.

That sounds like it wasn't deliberate, or machine learning, or testing, but a giant bug with the algo.

Also, "But there’s this mass perception outside the search industry that there’s too much low quality stuff polluting the search results. Panda was designed to address that."

Here's how I put it all together, feel free to do so with your own spin.

"We've launched a super algo update called Panda to stop the bad press we've been getting about search quality, but scrapers will outrank you in the serps."

I don't really see anything in the interview that explains why sites haven't come back from Panda after making changes either.

It seems like it took a while for the big G to admit there is an issue with the scrapers in the serps.

Reality check: Google is in it to make money, not feed the world. Does that make them good or evil?

Only YOU can decide.

[rlange]

supercyberbob wrote:
Here's how I put it all together, feel free to do so with your own spin.

"We've launched a super algo update called Panda to stop the bad press we've been getting about search quality, but scrapers will outrank you in the serps."

You make it sound like he's saying, "Deal with it." I read it as, "We've created and released an algorithm to address the quality issues that people have been complaining about. We're aware that this algorithm is not working as intended in some cases and are working to correct that issue."

--
Ryan

[supercyberbob]

rlange

hehe. Didn't mean to make it sound like "Deal with it."

My main point is it took a Q&A at SMX Advanced months after Panda was pushed out to even acknowledge the issue.

Just seems a bit sketchy to me considering the impact of the panda update.

And then there's the timeline to recovery, but that's another story.

[maximillianos]

Let's hope we see the scraper issue resolved. That is the biggest issue I have had with this update. Nevermind the hit my sites took. I can't stand the injustice of watching the scrapers rank #1.

[Freedom]

But the message is clear: have dozens of sites, don't trust what Google says and don't don't depend on them, even though they have 65%-70% of the market.

That was my reaction back in Feb and what I've been working on. Dozens of new sites in an ambitious plan to get bullet proof. Diversified ad revenue, diversified SEO techniques - all clean, but working different angles and over-lapping. Content is V E R Y L O N G.

If I have to go to 50 new sites, earning $2 a day, that's what I'll do.

It could take one to two years to complete, but spread yourself way out.

And I'm moving way beyond adsense - out of spite, and because I don't trust any googlesoft #*&! *&!0$%.

I hope the Wall street slams the crap out of them.

[SEOPTI]

They fix site quality in their algo but at the same time they give a f*** about scam artists stealing content.

Now you know everything you shold know about their priorities. It's time Bing replaces them.

Did I read in the interview with MC they dedicated a single soul to stop stealing content or am I blind? If this is the case this is just ridiculous. What the f*** are they trying to accomplish? It's really time thie monopoly is replaced by a different less evil monopoly.

I think they should completely stop communication with webmasters, they spread myths and nonsense all the time. It's clear their departments don't talk with each other. probably their internal structures are not organized and Goog Inc. will not exist in a few years. This reminds me of the Maya. And you know what happend to the Maya.

[edited by: SEOPTI at 4:41 am (utc) on Jun 10, 2011]

[Whitey]

From what i can work out Matt says this is the "search quality" teams responsibility. I also get the feeling that the decision to pull the switch was a large commercial directive.

So in the context of this, a reason why sites won't come back is that Google want's to force more sites into advertising with them. Reversing this quickly will potentially be counter productive for them. So folks can carry on about search quality, but i think it has a huge connection with $$'s in Google's bank account and the ever increasing need to raise the share price.

Timing is everything in these updates. Search quality is simply a means to that end.

[SEOPTI]

Whitey, you are right, Panda is also all about force them to buy adwords, once again force them to buy these damn adwords clicks.

Just f*** organic visitors/rankings for a webmaster or company and this person will be forced to buy the overpriced adwords clicks if he wants to survive. Don't expect your panda rankings to come back, if you are a dreamer you know what to do.

A simple and perverse commercial strategy.

[tedster]

I've been hearing that tune since the day Google launched Adwords - and I'm 100% sure it's just not true. The organic search team doesn't even have a KPI that's related to revenue.

Here's the way I see the current situation. Google's organic team took on an immense job with Panda - something that no one ever tried to do before with machine intelligence. And in some ways the results are still very rough. I expect they will stay pretty rough in some areas for a good while longer. That's the way immense jobs are.

But the problems are not showing up on highly competitive search terms. If someone got pandalyzed off page one for a big query, then a competitor with a decent offering just got promoted to page one for that query. That's a zero sum situation - it does NOT add up to forcing more Adwords income.

That said, I really do wish th Googlers would speak more clearly about the situation - especially why so many sites don't seem to get re-ranked no matter what kind of changes they make. There's got to be some plain English available, but this particular exchange between Danny and Matt didn't provide it.

[Whitey]

I'm 100% sure it's just not true

I'm not so convinced and indeed the search team themselves may not be focused on that, as indeed you say. With an operation the size of Google's such a shift must follow some authorsiation process which is commercially linked. Timing is critical.

With every adjustment in the organic SERP's there are winners and losers - granted ( albeit Google is occupying more of that space with it's own marketing realestate direct controls ). But with every disruption comes panic and companies question their investment and stability in the SERP's so are more likely to switch budgets across to Adwords.

There has to be a commercial angle on this out of the hands of the purists who do their job in search quality and spam with the best intentions toeing the company line. Maybe Matt wants to tell us the truth and half the Google employees may do as well - but they don't write the communication policy and interviewers are keen not to loose their contact by being too direct or they won't have a second chance at questioning.

That said I believe that Google will reinstate results when it wants to and that will need to have some commercial clearances on the back of the technical considerations. But then again, what do i know :)

This is how myths are born - no communication and lot's of imagination.

All i know is Google is increasing it's income in the last quarter - or so i believe.

I really do wish th Googlers would speak more clearly about the situation - especially why so many sites don't seem to get re-ranked no matter what kind of changes they make.

Absolutely - I'll 2nd that - this would be the considerate thing to do for those involved.

[MLHmptn]

Dunno but maybe Panda 2.2 is in testing phase now as we speak....Check out search.icq.com. Seems to be pre Panda SERP's or as close as I've seen since Panda went into effect.

[koan]

.Check out search.icq.com. Seems to be pre Panda SERP's or as close as I've seen since Panda went into effect.

I don't see it. I tried for one keyword and it's the same as Google current results.

[zeus]

Just made a search, got 148,000,000 results on spot 6 on page one there is a site with about 40-50 link exchanges, 20 images which all goes to a external affiliate link, so no content what so ever, they even have on the right side about 60 different Categories links which would normally go to other internal page, which it also does but with the same images as affiliate link. damn there is 0 content on frontpage , 40 link exchanges and maybe 60 duplicated content pages

The site I mentioned before is now no.1 with 148mill results and as said its almost 0 content and a lot of duplicated content, like the frontpage as example about 150-200, 16 images which are from the affiliate server and 15 words at the bottom the usual copyright blabla, but thats it

[Reno]

That's the way immense jobs are.

So it makes me wonder if this is an example where G took on more than it could handle vis-a-vis a total rollout. Perhaps for a 12 month peridod they could have focused Panda on a thin slice of search queries only, got the fine tuning in place, then made it the default for everything?

Don't know ~ I'm not a search engineer, but this cannot possibly be working as they expected.

We all remember how they almost immediately came out and trumpeted their so-called extensive testing, which was NOT real-world. Laboratory testing and real-world are 2 different animals, as drug manufacturers learned a long time ago. Google had their own people run this monstrosity, thought it was a winner, then released it to the English speaking world, and like a poorly tested pharmaceutical, are seeing side effects that are deadly. Surprise surprise.

If/when the technology bubble pops, look for Google to get hit hard, and the Panda failure will be identified, IMO, as part of the reason.

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

[rlange]

Whitey wrote:
All i know is Google is increasing it's income in the last quarter - or so i believe.

*facepalm* Which is it? Do you know this to be true, or do you simply believe it to be true?

Speculation is inevitable and not necessarily bad, but too many people are dressing it up as knowledge. This sort of thing is a huge obstacle to reasonable discussion.

--
Ryan

[zeus]

this update has nothing to do with that they want you to spend more on adwords.

what im missing 1 clear point where they say, this is bad for your site, thats our main focus with Panda, be cause the update takes so long and many are in real trouble, as said I have to move out of my new house if nothing changes in the next few Month thats a fact. A normal update fux is about 2-3 weeks, but this time it takes Month, thats way we need ONE point on which we can focus and not all that bull with 20-30 points, when I see the results nothing of that fits.