Minor Panda update Oct 13 - per Matt Cutts

[sid786]

Matt Cutts responds on Twitter that they have applied a minor algorithmic update last late night.

Link: http://twitter.com/#!/mattcutts/status/124905069748559872 [twitter.com]

Have your websites been affected with this update? My site's traffic is stable, but I was expecting a positive bump.

[Mod's note: Fixed link so it would display, as the WebmasterWorld link redirect script will break it in most browsers. Copy and paste url into your browser if hyperlink doesn't go to Matt's tweet.]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 9:54 pm (utc) on Oct 14, 2011]
[edit reason] fixed link display [/edit]

[snickles121]

This is funny to share. I just did a search on one of my keywords with 3 words in the sentence. We fell to the second page while a guy with one page (he has a one page website) took over our number four spot. On top of it he has 3 affiliate links going out.

Im glad its all about quality.

[DirigoDev]

Good things have a way of coming back! Oh, the days of a single page site. My first web page in 1997 was a one page site. I thought I was so cool. I had one of those horizontal rules like Knight Rider that went to and fro. Or was it like the Battlestar Galactia Cylon eyes? Way cool! I’m going to build a one page site and see if I can make it rank. We should have a WebmasterWorld challenge to see how many low quality single page sites we can get to rank above quality sites. Anyone?

On a more serious note, my Panda 2 recovery might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I'm just not sure yet. Something does not feel right. I have about the same amount of traffic now that I had in early April. The traffic is different though. Lower quality. I’m still trying to figure it out. My high quality terms did not pick up much more traffic. I’m getting scads more traffic from lower converting KW phrases – about 7k of them. Feels like some sort of traffic throttle on higher trafficked keyword phrases. No complaints. I’ll work to make these new visitors very happy.

[docbird]

My impression from this thread - and would appreciate comments - is that SEO is not dead, but should now include more on ensuring a page is of some actual value.

So good titles, keywords, H1 tags and so on should still have roles to play; yet amount to no more than a hill of beans if the page is just fluff, or copied, or even has nothing on supposed content. [At least, that's the aim of Panda, even if doesn't work so well in practice.]

[azn romeo 4u]

I have 4.6 million back links.

I'm not sure if that's the reason why I have not been effected by Panda yet since it's inception.

Edit. In fact, my traffic is up 200% since last year. *Knocks On Wood*

[Bennie]

For the first time in about 5 years some of my sites are really struggling as of a few days ago.

There are out of date pages from large brand sites (tiny out of date article) ranked #2 for travel destination terms and exact match sites with little content beating one site that has been online for a LONG time and has over 35 good pages of information with natural old deep links from lots of sites. The other sites in front are exact match domains in .org and .au that are both new with little content or links. The first site has always been #1 and deserves to be there.

I don't know what Google are doing, but it's not looking very good to me. At the same time I don't really care either. As they inch closer to crap SERPs it's not my problem, I have better areas to focus on.

But the amount of low level hand spun or even automated links that work these days is a little embarrassing for Google. All I can deduce is they are struggling to sort the wheat from the chaff.

It really is a sad day when good sites slip under crap, automated links and new sites with bad content on exact match domains. Oh well, I'm going to expect even less from big G now :D

[walkman]

Just before Christmas season so many people hurt (or at least 'noisy' ones) in a small update. Must have been small, but powerful and focused. Panda might have learned not to waste time now.

DirigoDev,
compared to pre-Panda where are you traffic wise? Regarding the junk traffic many are reporting it, including me. But after being negative on Panda since a month after it hit, I am starting to look at it differently after some here opened my eyes. Now I'm looking at panda as "for the users." People are still buying and converting and Google can read intent, so maybe sometimes the algorithm figures it out that our sites might not be the best choice for the converting ones to visit. It could even be a Google link or a relevant adwords ad. As long as Google's users are happy, something Google tracks religiously, we can't complain. Users in mind and all.

[DirigoDev]

Walkman,

My traffic is now a wee bit higher than pre-Panda. I hear you. I'm thinking that it might take a few weeks for this new traffic to warm-up to our site/content. Our sales pitch is soft. We offer a lot of information. I'm in data collection and analysis mode. Can't complain!

Panda 2 was also a little update. Their little update took a year or too off my life - stress and all. Not so little to me or our employees. Let's hope these Panda 2.5.2 folks learn from our experience and focus on "the users." This is the best course for recovery.

[coosblues]

my site, which has been around for 10+ years, has killer content, and authoritative one-way links got whacked yesterday...hard. replaced by large corporate owned websites or spammy sites.

I have almost the same identical set of conditions you mentioned. Traffic dropped by nearly 50%; adsense earnings tanked (no surprise). Should I wait this one out as in past updates or try and get proactive. Seems to me my only choice is to wait because I have no idea what "Panda" found wrong with my site.

[walkman]

coosblues and others:
sorry to hear about your Panda troubles, the truth is that no one is likely to know here or on any other forum. But at least you are not being greeted with "your site must suck, otherwise Google would not have..." by Google's fanboy club. Oh the memories.

You have no choice but to wait, unless you see something obviously wrong with your site. Of course fix those and really take a look at everything, but for every person that changed something and came back, there's one that did nothing and came back. Of course both sides have gone in and out of Panda, so I would not do anything for Panda now.

[Whitey]

Feels like some sort of traffic throttle on higher trafficked keyword phrases.

Many years ago Google would trickle traffic back while it went through a trust check ( it may still do for knew sites ).

The engineers mindset may be applied the same for redeemed sites and Google's premium keywords. So if you want to rank for a premium trophy term, links won't get you there without a huge quality score.

@DirigoDev - i may be wrong, but i sense your keywords on restored traffic are not the same as before and not of good enough quality. But maybe the recent improvements have not filtered through yet to conversions. The only answer i think is to apply a check to your top 20 or so keywords ( not phrases ) and see what's happening. But more data samples are needed from others.

What this might say is potentially important as to how much more work is required to get a top line "quality" site accepted by Google.

@Walkman - so happy you can see the light. It's not easy to move from the past to a new day ... thousands may follow your example and repay big dividends with shared ideas of creativity :)

Let the user experience lead the way. Forget about manipulative tricks and algo's, knocking your competitors down, focusing on cheats or Google's imperfections. It's not productive.

Focus on the users as a prime area of business sustainability, service them well, support with technical thoroughness and the rest will follow. The original guidelines by Amit Singal will start to make more sense then.

[tictoc]

Searching on health terms I am not finding the good information I found weeks ago. Guess I will have to start using Bing or bookmarking everything so I can find it again.

[Whitey]

Searching on health terms I am not finding the good information

tictoc - is that productive ? What can you do with your site, what have you done - isn't this more productive.

[walkman]

@Walkman - so happy you can see the light. It's not easy to move from the past to a new day ... thousands may follow your example and repay big dividends with shared ideas of creativity happy!

Let the user experience lead the way. Forget about manipulative tricks and algo's, knocking your competitors down, focusing on cheats or Google's imperfections. It's not productive.

What light did I see? And please let's not assume that I do these:
"about manipulative tricks and algo's, knocking your competitors down, focusing on cheats or Google's imperfections."

Other than the last part. When you figure Panda out with your probing questions, please let us know.

Now have a great night.

[courier]

Here is an interesting article about how Google algo can work and Quality Raters Guidelines 2011

shhh big brothers watching :)

From potpiegirls site [potpiegirl.com...] EDIT 10-18-2011 8:57 pm EST – I’m sorry everyone, but Google has contacted me and asked me to stop linking to this document.

[Whitey]

@Walkman - no inference meant on your , but I was referring to the general tone of folks who are under the pump looking in the wrong direction and/or others that do that sort of thing and communicate it. Apologies if it read that way about you - it was meant to be generalised.

But after being negative on Panda since a month after it hit, I am starting to look at it differently after some here opened my eyes

..... but this is what i was applauding to you and those that helped you in challenging times. Great to see.

[edited by: Whitey at 7:45 am (utc) on Oct 19, 2011]

[Andylew]

Oh dear google, seems like the shoe is on the other foot now and they dont like it. For anyone who wants a copy of the article then we need to thank google for being such a lovely search engine so if you look hard enough it can still be found.

Back to the panda topic...

First a sugestion (for google), call the next update the 'shotgun' update - its the one that comes along and kills the panda once and for all, its about time they realised it doesnt work!

I say this because it looks like there was an update overnight in the uk, its still a little early to tell exactly how the day will play out but has anyone else seen any changes?

[Hissingsid]

@snickles121 while a guy with one page (he has a one page website) took over our number four spot

You lucky person!

There is much to be learned from such focused anomalies. You have a single page to study unencumbered with sitewide effects. Understand why they got to #4 and you will understand much about Panda.

One of the strong themes that was going here after the Florida update was "why are there so many directories and similar at the top of SERPS".

Idiots went out and generated directories so that they could compete in the new post Florida SERPS.

The smart guys studied what it was about directories that allowed them to get to the top and applied what they learned to their own site.

Sid

[almighty monkey]

One of our clients was hit, hard, over the weekend, with a 60% loss of search traffic (They are a well known brand, so there was a lot of branded searches in that 40% - if they'd been smaller and more reliant on generic terms, it'd be catastrophic) It appears to be back to business as usual today though, judging by head phrase rankings.

Methinks Google intended this to be a tiny update, as per Matt Cutts, and it was in reality a major boo-boo.

[kidder]

Methinks Google intended this to be a tiny update, as per Matt Cutts, and it was in reality a major boo-boo.

Yeah I don't think you can work this one out because its either not done or not done right. Take your pick.

[tcsoftware]

Its almost as if they're trying to get a single algorithm with global settings to do everything. A minor change to fix a few results pages leads to large unintended consequences elsewhere.

[zeus]

As I said two years ago the webmasters and google people dont work together anymore, they do there thing and stick to it. Sometimes I think it would be a great idea to have a forum here which is closed for goggle people so we really can talk rankings, algo.... and also a open forum as we have now. I think the topics will be more real and not that much "damn i lost ranking damn google" talk, also they dont have a clue what we know and not, at least the users here. Now this is special important with this Panda update, its a important update, but Im not sure I want to say "hmm think I know what can get rankings back" and then have google over my head.

[rj87uk]

I just got a message from Google a few minutes ago telling me that I should place extra Google ads on 1000 or so number of pages. I usually only have one per page, does this mean that Google are seeing lower Adsense revenue and done some mass mailing?

I am posting this here because as part of Panda 2.5 I believe that too many adverts on a page has a negative impact on a website's usability and therefore rankings.

Thoughts?

[netmeg]

They periodically send that out to everyone who isn't using three ad units on every page. I always ignore it.

[Zivush]

I am posting this here because as part of Panda 2.5 I believe that too many adverts on a page has a negative impact on a website's usability and therefore rankings.

I asked my Adsense rep the same question , he didn't give direct answer and even advised to increase the # of ads.
I assume ads # is part of the overall look n feel of the site that create the total user experience.
The site's design play a roll and of course the quality of pages.
For example - less Ads in one site may create a negative impact while eve more ads in the other have no impact on usability.

[Bill_H]

Tedster et al;
In continuation of my last post that we are seeing traffic return to pre Oct 13 levels, we are also seeing higher page views from GoogleBot. In short, by Wednesday noon, traffic is now up 50% from the weekend lows.

Cheers,
Bill

[GreenDog18]

In regards to google ads I will add that one of my sites made it passed every google update until the 14th. About a week before the 14th I put one more google ad above the fold. Please keep in mind that I made NO other changes.

I feel that it is part of panda but probably just a small piece of the pie.

Important note: All my metrics stayed the same when adding that second ad. So bounce rate, time on site and were consistent.

I believe my site was riding the line and that extra ad threw me over. I have removed it and will let you guys know the outcome.

[snickles121]

Do you guys think that Panda would penalize a sitemap.html page with 500 site links on one page? All pages pointed to it and I just got done removing it since we have a sitmap.xml now.

[menntarra 34]

Hello, i have a quick question.
I have a tab on my page listing ALL content on my site, with pagination on the bottom, do you think it is wise to remove those pages from google, and only let the first page show up? Also if i have a page with search like:

website.com/search/book/page1, website.com/search/book/page2

Is it wise to remove all other pages except the first, cause all it differs is that it is a different page number (of course it has different content as well) But i guess it isn't quite right to make these pages race against eachoter...

So all in all, these pages might be considered duplicates, cause they are nearly duplicates, that's why i was thinking to remove them, what do you think?

[DirigoDev]

My recovery continues to hold.

A review of my top 17 single KW terms by traffic volume pre and post 11/14 update shows some shifting of traffic from some words to others. Of my top 7 terms (e.g. terms that drive revenue) I gained traffic on 6. About 50% more traffic on my more important terms. I lost an equally proportional amount of traffic on my less important terms (e.g. those that do not drive revenue). So my heavily trafficked single words were neutral in terms of traffic. A look at a larger set of single words produced similar results. This means that my recovery came entirely from less trafficked single words.

I’m working on KW phrases now to see if the same pattern exists.

Does it mean anything or is it just coincidence?

*Note: The sample size here is fairly small and measured over just 4 days.

[tedster]

I have a tab on my page listing ALL content on my site, with pagination on the bottom, do you think it is wise to remove those pages from google, and only let the first page show up? Also if i have a page with search like:

website.com/search/book/page1, website.com/search/book/page2

Welcome to the forums, menntarra_34. I think your instincts are correct here. Handling pagination in a savvy way has become more important. And if the "search" URL is a site search result (result of user typing in search terms), then I'd keep it out of indexing altogether. It gives googlebot essentially and infinite URL space and that can lead to trouble.