Panda (NOT PENGUIN) Refresh - began June 8, 2012

[tedster]

From the "A Googler" account on Twitter:

FYI Panda data refresh started rolling out on Friday. Less than 1% of queries noticeably affected in the U.S. & 1% worldwide.

[twitter.com...]

[menntarra 34]

@realmaverick

I monitor several competitor sites, and none of them been hit by any of the pandas. However i suffered mayor drops( 13th October, April, and now i've lost another 25% in June).
After the October hit, up until now i did tons of work removing duplicate content, now i have zero errors in WMT, and i have zero duplicate content with more than 2 million unique pages!

My site is older than those competitors. And what confuses me that 4 out of those sites are ranking better with pages that have hundreds of duplicates in google results.

Let me describe this further: they have a search on their website, and if you type "blue" and then "blue widget", they provide the same results for these two searches. Of course they have like thousands of duplicate content pages based on this example.
What is funny that now lot of these sites appear on first and second page of google.

For my most competitive words(which i used to rank second in SERPS, now on third page of google), these low content sites are there on page1 with more than one pages in lot of the cases.

So all in all i realize the same as synthese: the work i done does not seem to have any effect whatsoever.

[MrSavage]

I'm not trying to be sarcastic but how is everyone sure of their drop in traffic being Panda? What about the freshness algo, Penguin or a penalty being a possible cause? People sound positive about what the cause of traffic loss and perhaps I'm missing something on this.

[gadget26]

MrSavage: Large, abrupt, and permanent traffic drops that coincide with panda dates perfectly.

[Zivush]

Not clear yet, how minor this update was - 1% of searches.
Because it must be a zero sum game, it is interesting to figure out how many lost traffic and how many gained?

[menntarra 34]

Funny: since the April Panda, the requests which are looking for my domain trippled... I guess my content not that shallow, at least not for users. They might be looking for content which are now demoted in google.

[realmaverick]

Menntarra34 I've also noticed an increase.

My number 1 keyword is always my sites brand name. Which you'd think would count for something in itself. Apparently not.

[HuskyPup]

Now I haven't a clue what's happening. Some time after 21.00 UK last night my Coppermine gallery had a big boost and my numbers not only went back to normal but also my AdSense on that gallery had its best day in two months.

Most of my B&M sites also saw a healthy increase across the board, for instance today I'm already ahead of either Saturday or Sunday's numbers with 9 hours to go, except for one site which inexplicably is now at 40% of January/February...and I consider this site to be my new flagship site!.!.!

[atlrus]

Not clear yet, how minor this update was - 1% of searches.
Because it must be a zero sum game, it is interesting to figure out how many lost traffic and how many gained?

It would be impossible to determine.

I have a website which was Pandalized (even though it was 100% original content and referenced by many "authority" websites). One page was ranked #1 for "cool blue widget(s)" before Panda, then dropped to 100+. Since Panda, it has been climbing back up slowly, reaching second page for "cool blue widget" but just 8th page for "cool blue widgets" (plural).

This refresh made the page completely disappear from the results for "cool blue widget" (previously 2nd page) but is just shy from being back on first page for "cool blue widgets" (previously 8th page)...

There is just no reason why this page should swing like this - nothing has been done to it, no links have been added/removed, it's just a static page. Good luck even thinking of a reason, not to mention actually finding one.

[realmaverick]

HP it's interesting that you're still noticing changes from Fridays update.

I've found that user metrics have a massive effect on Adsense. Despite a 40% loss in traffic, which equates to about 15,000 uniques a day, I'm almost earning the same amount.

[colonelu81]

E-commerce site . Split content in many subdomains after being hammered by multiple Panda iterations . Done that in mid march . Moved pages slowly . Also changed all description with unique and relevant ones
One subdomain after 26 april ( Panda and Pinguin update ) doubled traffic. Around 14 May lost about 20% . Last Friday lost again 20-25% , and the traffic is today the same as in early april
One subdomain gained 70% more traffic from last Friday , and one more subdomain around 30-40% .
The rest of subdomains - no change
My keywords are always long tail . The last update brought some very strange pages on top . I see a lot o blogs , some empty pages from websites with no backlinks . Really strange .

[colonelu81]

I have no really explanation for these changes . None of my subdomains are better or worse . Today i rank very high for some very competitive keywords and on another subdomain for a long tail keyword i rank below some empty pages , blogs with pages about something completely different . WTF ?

[Nichita]

I've posted a response here [webmasterworld.com...] but now I've see that this post is 100% related to Panda update.

I want to find the factors of Panda penalties but I want to see if the affected websites are included at these points:

1. A bad architecture of the site;
2. Possible disturbing ads (small distance between ads and text);
3. Possible duplicate content, but another type of duplicate content, generated by the rewritten articles (I believe Google can detect which articles are rewritten);
4. Excessive internal linking;
5. Multiple articles with the same subject;
6. Excessive number of articles daily published (at very short interval of time);
7. A lot of syndication (via rss feeds, including Facebook / Twitter auto-posting).

Did you help me ? I believe we can find some common factors at the affected sites.

[crobb305]

Possible duplicate content, but another type of duplicate content, generated by the rewritten articles (I believe Google can detect which articles are rewritten);

They can't even detect that a website about fungus has nothing to do with finance. They also can't detect original author, or we wouldn't see original news sources suppressed after duplication.

[HuskyPup]

crobb305 +1

[Nichita]

I believe they don't want to show it, but are able to do it. The other points ?

[diberry]

We've been thinking of rankings as static, you get x% of the searches for your keyword based on your rank, but that's NOT how the internet works anymore. The rankings are in flux depending on site type (informational vs transactional vs locational) and day of week, keep that in mind with any report you make here... please.

Sgt_Kickaxe, I think this is a really key point (and I just added this to the Zombie Traffic thread because I think it might be relevant there, too [webmasterworld.com ]). I wonder if we're no longer just competing for the #1 spot, but competing for the #1 spot at the prime time of day/day of week? I don't know why Google would do this, though. For paid ads, it makes total sense - you can charge more for a TV ad during a prime time slot - but for natural ads... well, I guess it might throw off those who try to game the algo, but beyond that, I'm not seeing the advantage. But it certainly looks like this is going on.

[engine]

One of the consequences of Panda 1 was that it destroyed a lot of traffic which came from blogs. Some of that traffic seems to be coming back. Old blog pages and new blog pages back in the serps.

[indyank]

One of the consequences of Panda 1 was that it destroyed a lot of traffic which came from blogs.

do you mean blogs were a primary target of panda 1 and now it has been reverted? Are you sure that users routed via blogs are from search engines? Do you now get the traffic from all blogs that you used to get earlier or only from a few of them? If it is only from some of the blogs, how do they differ from the other ones? do you see any changes being done to these blogs post panda?

Thanks in advance.

[engine]

@indyank

I was referring to the sites i'd been watching. Although the sites themselves never got hit, primarily because they are good quality sites with good in-bounds. They sit pretty in the serps. What the sites lost was traffic which came from some blogs. It was surprising how much traffic the blogs sent, then Panda hit and the traffic virtually dried up. It was good quality traffic, too.

Panda 1.0 wacked too many of the good sites as well as the bad, imho.

That traffic appears to be starting to come back, albeit slowly.

[Leosghost]

I want to find the factors of Panda penalties but I want to see if the affected websites are included at these points:

Nichita..Panda was debated here endlessly ever since the first iteration back in early 2011, most, if not all of what you are asking about ( your "list" ) re ..

I believe we can find some common factors at the affected sites.

Has already been covered and "found" in those old threads..

You should try searching "panda WebmasterWorld" in your choice of search engine and reading through them "to get you up to speed"..

Asking now and in this thread, is a bit like walking in 80% of the way through the main movie and asking to debate what happened in the overture animation..

Most people here pretty much have worked out what common factors were within the first 3 months of panda, you'll have to read long and intensively, just to catch up..:)

[crobb305]

Nichita..Panda was debated here endlessly ever since the first iteration back in early 2011, most, if not all of what you are asking about ( your "list" ) re

So true...endless debates and analyses. Huge threads, over a year ago. Time flies. Definitely too much to rehash.

[Nichita]

I've read a lot of forums / posts and I still have no proof about the real factors of Panda.

Is a bounce rate a factor ? Is the number of visited pages ? Is the number of articles posted daily ? Is their length ?

With a common effort, I believe we can answer at all these questions.

[Leosghost]

Nichita..we already did all of that here ..months ago..Search the old threads..

We can't do it all again every time someone new joins,who hasn't yet read the old threads here,about Panda since it first ran,last year.:-)

[diberry]

Nichita, you're not going to get proof. Google kind of keeps this stuff a secret.

[menntarra 34]

I understand Nichita, and because i don't know any proof of ANY panda recovery, my answer to your question is that noone knows, that's the "beauty" of google panda.
Because panda is and algo change not a penalty, i assume that it takes years to get back your rankings... and because of this noone will spot what really triggered the recovery.

Now i'm at a point that instead of wishing for a recovery, i hope the google spam team will get fired sooner :)

[Robert Charlton]

Nichita - Welcome to WebmasterWorld. There are several ways of searching or browsing for what's been discussed here previously. You can use Google directly to search webmasterworld.com. Here's a search roughly matching the question you asked....

[recovering from panda site:webmasterworld.com]

It returns roughly 4,880 results.

Or, you can use our site search (small link up in the top nav)... and also, in this forum, we have a Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.

Note in Hot Topics that, near the top, there's a link for "Panda Iteration Dates". If you click that, you'll get a list of roughly 15 dated links, each referring to Panda changes and corresponding discussions.

There were so many discussions initially, though, that the first dated link... Feb 24, 2011... will take you to a reference page (Panda Farm Update Directory - key discussions) containing 11 links that then lead to various key threads on our initial discovery and familiarization with Panda. Some of those discussions, I feel, provide good material to aid your understanding now.

The other dated links on the "Panda Iteration Dates" page take you to individual disussions about the various iterations. Currently, the last link on that list... Jun 08, 2012... should take you to the thread we're currently on.

These are key discussions only, so I recommend that you both browse through these and let site search be your friend.

[Nichita]

Thank you guys. I know is almost impossible to recover from Panda. My intention was to make a kind of poll, where all the affected webmaster to put their analytics data.

If we answer at 20 questions about the penalized sites, for example, it's very possible to find a common factor, present in all affected websites. All the individual efforts to find the cause of Panda are impossible to find solution, just because the webmasters has little "samples" to study (just their websites).

I will try to read all the posts about this update. I still believe that a Panda penalty can be restored.

[louieramos]

I recently got a site out of Panda after a couple of months, I can give you some basic tips just PM me. To date I was able to get a site out of Panda in Norway, UK, Australia and USA.

[Andylew]

Something new, perhaps...

Now there have been several panda runs there is something I have found is very clear. The way it is working for us is panda hits and removes the 'duff' pages from the serps. The standard algo will continue and pages may be readded to the index over the next few months until panda hits again and removes any duff pages the standard algo has added.

When the first panda run took place it got rid of everyones duff pages hence the big hit everyone took.

What ive seen since with continually improving the site is that between panda runs traffic increases until the next panda run where there is a big drop. The process of panda weeding out the duff pages the standard algo may have added into the serps.

Ive lost track of how many runs there has been but overall across the entire time there has been an upward traffic trend, imagine 2 steps forward 1 step back and you get the idea. Site improvement obviously works but be under no illusion that lost traffic will return overnight whichever iteration has hit your site.

[jost]

Yaaay, traffic down another 15%.

I f-ing hate google so much.

I work and work and work and improve my portfolio of sites, I gain 10% traffic over 6 months, and then another f-ing update takes away 15% of my traffic.

I do NOT play any seo games, or create BS backlinks, or anything. I focus on building quality communities like a good little webmaster and im constantly punished for it. Maybe google wants me to do black hat crap? Seems playing nice just gets you punished.

This year will be the year I start selling AD's directly and cut google out of the picture. I have to re-incorporate and form an entirely different structure, and setup credit card processing which is another nightmare, along with a AD system for people who purchase ad's.

But at this point, I hate google so damn much I will do anything to avoid them and their crack.

If I did nothing my google revenue would just continue to go down down down 10-20% a year until I had nothing. Its a constant upstream battle against google taking traffic away every year even though my sites just grow and grow. ARGH!