The true panda recovery - not in traffic, but income

[whatson]

Well I am going to give it a little bit longer, maybe see what comes up at Pubcon, but after that I think I eventually give up. But I still have bills to pay, mortgages, and a baby and wife to feed.

So instead of trying to get my traffic back, by offering such a good service to my visitors, I may just cover it in ads, and sell links from all the pages. It may not get back quite to my original income, but I am sure it will make a difference.
Doesn't seem to be much to lose anyway.

Maybe if that's not enough perhaps delve into some black hat.

How does that sound Google? Think Panda is going to be better for your users now?

[Zivush]

if I work out how to get out of Panda, I can make some serious money.

After lots of hours of checking/thinking/testing, I am almost sure it will never happen unless Google decide to loosen the rope, you get a traffic from any other source or brand your site like a rock star and G notice it.
(Honestly, there's no chance. Online branding in the scale needed is impossible for peasants like us.)
I will go for having loyal readers: It is time to interact with readers, getting them sign the newsletter and letting them participate in answers, commenting, video etc etc.

Like it or not, we must face the fact that the Internet is changing from information source to info + more social engagement.
Google tries to meet 'something' in the future and I hope they know what they are doing. All in all, we as site owners, should not rely on them to feed us forever. Party is over...well almost.

[whatson]

Well they were the make or break of all web businesses, so we had no choice other than to rely on them, without them its just a little bit of income drizzling in to pay some bills.

I am sure they know what they are doing but it doesn't involve us.

I just cant work out why there are other sites (some my own) that did not get hit by the Panda, and why not?

On top of that we have certain brands that were hit, e.g. ehow, along with quite a few others, that I probably cant name here.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

You can PLASTER informational pages with ads apparently, it won't(in my experience) impact their rankings. Don't do it with transactional pages however, if there's product or affiliate item offers keep advertising to a minimum, if any, as it WILL have a negative impact (had it happen to me).

I've done the same, Google canceled traffic to my product/affiliate pages and I compensated in income by loading up the informational with more ads. The most recent changes are intended to favor big brands, go figure Google is in hearings about how they manipulate traffic too. I've just witnessed it first hand, my site is a mix of both and only half my site (the transactional half) was decimated.

[Reno]

You can PLASTER informational pages with ads apparently, it won't(in my experience) impact their rankings. Don't do it with transactional pages however, if there's product or affiliate item offers keep advertising to a minimum

This strikes me as one of the single most important observations since PandaVirus was let loose on the webmaster community.

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

[courier]

@Zivush
(Honestly, there's no chance. Online branding in the scale needed is impossible for peasants like us.)

How big is a brand? Perhaps we are barking up the wrong tree. I do not need Google to put me intouch with a brand or website I already am aware of. For this type of brand I type their address direct into my browser, I know there are some people that do not do this, but if I am looking a widget I know that widget com sells that widget. This means there must be diferent levels and types of brand.

@Sgt_Kickaxe
You can PLASTER informational pages with ads apparently, it won't(in my experience) impact their rankings. Don't do it with transactional pages however, if there's product or affiliate item offers keep advertising to a minimum, if any, as it WILL have a negative impact (had it happen to me).

Perhaps Panda is to go after Googles competition, the affiliate site. After all if you are an affiliate you are in direct competition with Google, so if like myself you are an affiliate we perhaps need to think of a new way to do our ads. I do not mean hiding them from Google, but make tham more attractive to Google that they will say OK you have to do x, y or z before I am presented with an ad.

Every morning I check my stats expecting the worse. Personally I have began putting my ads at the bottom of the page with an anchor link to click at the top to take anyone there if they desire. Another thing I have done that increases more page views while on site, was to put a fuller tree type menu on the left hand side. Time spent on the site has increased dramatically. This site during Panda has increased it's position in the results, so either Panda has not made it to the site yet, or ........

[walkman]

How big is a brand? Perhaps we are barking up the wrong tree. I do not need Google to put me intouch with a brand or website I already am aware of. For this type of brand I type their address direct into my browser, I know there are some people that do not do this, but if I am looking a widget I know that widget com sells that widget. This means there must be diferent levels and types of brand.

I believe he mentioned that he is in the medical articles field and that his articles were written by a doctor.

However, with Panda, Google already has picked the winners there and fried the rest.

[Zivush]

@ walkman
Only one site of mine is the medical field, and yes the articles were written by a physician. Unfortunately, the knowledge/quality level of the articles was not a factor to help it escape Panda.
My main site is in another field.

I made a simple research on these two niches plus another one. All brands in those niches got the traffic of the Panda affected sites.
Mostly affected sites are sites from 100k-2M visits which are not recognized as brands.
I have a theory that Google categorize brands by rating their offline/online presence and overall influence. Something like a trust grade that they get.
It might be that our sites got this "trust" signal too.

However, some small sites managed to gain traffic until P2.2 and some others are still on the right side of a map.

[walkman]

@Zivush
I know, almost 100% certain, that content is not taken in consideration (unless "it's unique...blah blah," an impossibility in a world of 7 billion people.) It' possible that for health sites they may have manually chosen the 'trusted' ones and screw the rest, justifying as a need to send people to trusted medical sites.

Brands were for the most part excluded from penalties and got a major boost with Panda too, simply because this major bias is convenient to an advertising company seeking to book $40 Billion this year. $40 Billion in ads and brands are the lifeblood of the advertising industry and of course its leader. Fair or not, best results possible or not it doesn't matter. It's working for Google. _{It's not best for the users either, that's for sure as that money is added to the price of goods. Product links and ads are chosen based on what they make for Google, not on what's a good deal for visitor Joe Schmo.}

Reading a description of bounce rate from an adsense blog, I also think that Google may have used it. It makes sense on adsense since you want the person to visit another page to buy /dload/join after clicking on the carefully selected ad of yours but in sites, it's totally different: you do not control the traffic or keyword used to bring it. And not all sites have shopping carts /email lists to join etc. Most of the times, you read and leave. But it doesn't matter to Google, only not-so-important-for-them sites have been caught in this.

[whatson]

but what about ehow, or answers.com, they are big online brands too right? How were they not exempt? And how is it I have other sites that are not as old or credible as my main ones [that were hit], and were exempt?
Perhaps there is just a certain white list of sites that are exempt from Panda's algorithm, and rest are subject to it. Therefore the algo doesn't have to work that well, as it won't destroy any of the major sites' rankings.

[johnhh]

AFAIK there always has been a white list. I am also reaching the conclusion that certain brands basically own certain keyword searches ...

When you get invited to the 'plex you know you are in...

[walkman]

AFAIK there always has been a white list. I am also reaching the conclusion that certain brands basically own certain keyword searches ...

I think they start with what the big brands do so they work around them. Then, like they did with Panda they manually fixed anyone that was left out and was bad PR for google. As for the rest, or the really small to medium size business? Who cares. Their slick talking propagandists say that now your site is a low quality site do do this and that and maybe....or you can spend money and become a brand. Google's revenues increased to $30 Billion last year from around a couple of $billion in 2003-2004 and this year will reach $40 Billion helped by Panda. Crazy we aren't.

Notice how they made a huge deal about penalizing a few top sites for a whole 2 months--now they rank on top thanks to the bought links--but 7 months later normal sites hit by Panda are pretty much done. In one shot your entire business is almost gone thanks to a greedy monopolist. Btw, 92% of people use search engines [pewinternet.org...] , so saying 'don't depend them' is kinda of a joke. Like don't depend on your power company.

but what about ehow, or answers.com, they are big online brands too right? How were they not exempt? And how is it I have other sites that are not as old or credible as my main ones [that were hit], and were exempt?

Brands but brands that give G a black eye so Google was after them. Other top sites got their traffic

I am hoping Matt Cutts has some answers at Pubcon. I sure have some questions.

What answers? These things are not left to low level employees, it's clear now how Google works. The lies they told before don't fly now anymore. It's all about money and that's decided from the top, specifically Larry Page. Skip the spin and see how they act, not what they say [wired.com...] They want your site's and their visitors money for themselves and to try to establish a legacy.

[edited by: walkman at 11:11 pm (utc) on Sep 25, 2011]

[whatson]

Yeah, people saying work for Bing have no idea really, its just not feasible, and besides who can say that they wont bring out their own panda. Its like you said Walkman, having a web site company without Google is like running a business without power. It's just going to work.
I am hoping Matt Cutts has some answers at Pubcon. I sure have some questions.

[tedster]

Perhaps there is just a certain white list of sites that are exempt from Panda's algorithm, and rest are subject to it.

We could also think of Panda as being the machine intelligence BUILDER of a whitelist/blacklist situation.

It doesn't require a human-built whitelist to get Panda's effect, especially since Panda's machine learning started with human selected seed sets (good and bad). Then during the algo's development its results were quality checked against those target lists.

The end result might look like a whitelist situation, but it doesn't necessarily need to be that. In fact, I really doubt it. I've been involved in too many real-world situations where major players expected to be whitelisted over this or that and and Google wouldn't do it.

[whatson]

So the infamous white list is what the government are trying to stop?
Go Big Brother! - didn't think I would ever be saying that.

[SEOPTI]

Why care about Panda or what this smoke is called in order to hide their own evil "Goog owns the world" intentions?

Bing is the way to go, no Panda, no -950, no -50, consisent traffic and the most important part, consistent revenue. You will love it!

Why fighting Goog paranoia seach every day, go for Bing ranings! They will send you amazing conversions, quality traffic, people who buy, they appreciate your site. Don't be a fool, noindex Goog, and forget Goog for a few months. Or make different versions of your site for Bing and Goog. The site for Goog should contain a superb paranoie level regarding on and off site.

[whatson]

Most important part with Bing - low income and traffic.
Besides what do you do differently in the way of seo for bing than google?
I cant live on Bing, I cant even get by.

[koan]

Besides what do you do differently in the way of seo for bing than google?

I've also been wondering about that. Aren't the fundamentals the same?

[courier]

Most important part with Bing - low income and traffic

Do you not mean less traffic and income, I for one do pretty well out of Bing. It is no alternative at present for Google, but you could and can make your living from Bing if you have to. As with Google you need a site, popular, well positioned with lots of keywords.

What I do not understand completely about brands, Google revenue and positions in the organic results is, If I am a brand and am positioned #1, 2 or 3 for popular search terms, why would I spend $100,000 per month advertising for the same search terms? I may be missing something, but surely that is not good business sence, unless Google is saying covertly if you advertise in these popular results we will list you #1, 2 or 3 in the organic results. I am late tunning into the actions of Google, so this could have been explained previously.

[superclown2]

Yeah, people saying work for Bing have no idea really, its just not feasible, and besides who can say that they wont bring out their own panda. Its like you said Walkman, having a web site company without Google is like running a business without power. It's just going to work.

I can understand why people say this, particularly when their businesses have been smashed by a crazy panda. However; sorry to be contradictive but yes it can work and many of us have done it. A first or second position in Bing can bring just as much traffic as a below the fold position in Google, and it converts better too.

[affiliation]

A first or second position in Bing can bring just as much traffic as a below the fold position in Google, and it converts better too

This is perhaps the best analogy of having your business in Bing I have heard.

[Zivush]

@superclown2
Bing+Yahoo have 20% market share. Together. How can you rely on them? What are you talking about? How do you SEO for Bing different than Soeing for Google? Can you give us the basics :)

P.s. It is known that the bounce rate, time on site and page/visit is much better with these two. Bing/yahoo give better results for people still G is dominating the search market.

[wheel]

So instead of trying to get my traffic back, by offering such a good service to my visitors, I may just cover it in ads, and sell links from all the pages. It may not get back quite to my original income, but I am sure it will make a difference.

If you're going to seperate traffic from income in order to focus on income, then adsense is certainly not the only way to generate revenue from a site.

If content and traffic are high enough quality then one should be able to cook up some type of affiliate earnings or be able to sell ads directly online. And if the traffic and content isn't high enough quality to do that, then there's a good chance panda got it right.

For comparison, in my niche; adsense pays $7-$8/K pageviews on quality sites. I sell advertising direct for $20-$25/K pageviews. And get a better class of advertisers. The big 'brands' as it were.

Not only IMO do the sites look better with big brands advertising, but we get new advertisers because their competitors follow them around to see where they're advertising. I doubt that happens on adsense - at least not as far as your site is concerned.

Frankly, if you're using adsense for real income, then either you're being lazy and it's time to move on, or you're into monetization of lower quality content. If you've got decent traffic, there's no reason to use adsense give the alternatives that are readily available.

[wheel]

And this is a great thread - to many folks focus on the traffic, and never look at the monetization. Doubling your income is probably easier than doubling your traffic.

[affiliation]

@Zivush

How do you SEO for Bing

Some good information on this thread [webmasterworld.com...]

[whatson]

A first or second position in Bing can bring just as much traffic as a below the fold position in Google, and it converts better too

Right so we are in agreement then, Bing doesn't provide as well? But I find Google much easier to rank for, and usually have a 1 or 2nd position with Google and a below the fold position in Bing.

Wheel you are right to an extent, except I generate closer to $30 cpm on Adsense. It is harder to get advertisers to pay $50+. On the other hand you could be right, perhaps I have been a bit lazy in finding new revenue sources, and have been concentrating on building the site and content too much.

As for SEO for Bing, the best SEO was getting visitor from Google, who like your site so much they link to it. If your Google traffic dies, then it makes it that much harder.

[Zivush]

@affiliation
Thanks for the info

@whatson

I generate closer to $30 cpm on Adsense

Wow. This is the topest CPM I have ever heard about. It must be a gold mine area.

[walkman]

Right so we are in agreement then, Bing doesn't provide as well? But I find Google much easier to rank for, and usually have a 1 or 2nd position with Google and a below the fold position in Bing.

I think it depends on the field: tech related stuff Google is best and almost always ad free. For anything commercial, IMO, Google's organic serps are not the most relevant at all. Ads are, in lots and lots of cases, try it for yourself.

Most people cannot tell the difference between the two at all, if tested side by time. There's another not-so-tiny thing, Google keeps a lot more traffic to itself:

The success rate for Bing searches in the U.S. in July was 80.04%, compared to 67.56% for Google, according to Experian Hitwise. The market watcher defines "success rate" as the percentage of search queries that result in a visit to a website. Searches made through sites owned by Yahoo, which farmed out search to Bing under a deal struck in 2009, were also more efficient than Google. Those searches yielded a success rate of 81.36%.

[informationweek.com...]

If Google operated as Bing, we'd get 13% more clicks, probably a lot more than 13% in commercial terms, or $billions. To keep one in three visits seems just too much, but it's even getting worse.

[WillG]

Google is the only game in town for now. I start my sites out with that in mind and try to get as much traffic as I can from anywhere else I can. Google still makes up a large percentage so I have to play the game. Bing/Yahoo well their the only other choice and that's not looking all that good right now. They have many years of catching up to do. I thankfully dont depend on my sites to pay any bills and this alone has saved me and I never will. It takes a balanced approach to weather the G storm if you want to keep your head above water.

[1one1]

In Japan Yahoo is more popular than Google, so maybe start doing some co.jp sites and forget about Google.

[backdraft7]

I personally think the problems lie with the immense complexity of the system and those who attempt to game it. It almost seem that google has given up on the small guy in favor of big sites like Amazon, who now seems o rule the organic serps. The little guys seem intent on gaming whatever new algo comes along, forcing more changes in the algo and more complexity. Big established sites have little need to indulge in black hat gaming of the system, so seem to be rising and prospering. Think about that for a while.