Panda 3.9 Rolling out 7/24/2012

[netmeg]

Tweeted by Google:

New data refresh of Panda starts rolling out tonight. ~1% of search results change enough to notice. More context: [goo.gl...]
[searchengineland.com...]

[ascensions]

The first problem I can see with Zeus's hypothesis is why would there be a need for deep crawl at the time of algo refresh then?

Doesn't make sense to me. I truly think it's all about thin and "spinned" content, just as Google said. I was in denial for awhile.

[tedster]

why would there be a need for deep crawl at the time of algo refresh?

Here's how I understand it. There are two types of Panda changes - a DATA refresh and an ALGO update. There is a need for a new deep crawl around a data refresh, which this is. New data about websites is fundamental for a data refresh.

[Shaddows]

New data about websites is fundamental for a data refresh.

Exactly, which is why it is highly unlikely that tool-derived UX (or user metrics) is the whole story.

[Lenny2]

Yeah... Or the ux improvements (changes) stoke the deep crawl.. Ie google is tripped by the users to check out your site again...

With as much brain power that google has... I don't doubt there are multiple levels of complexity here.

[zeus]

Panda is not JUST user metrics but large part of it, "maybe" nobody knows for sure.

[petehall]

In my opinion bounce metrics are definitely used, and have been for years. I have seen countless websites rise to the first page only to fall a month or so later because they don't really offer what they claim they do.

Just because you optimise for it, doesn't mean you deserve it... the users tell G this. All IMO of course ;)

[claaarky]

ascensions, I think the deep crawl is a last minute check (e.g. are those low quality pages google spotted still on the site).

My thinking is similar to Zeus' (although I think the mechanics are slightly different and thats all fully documented in my exit rate thread). Before this panda refresh we saw our conversion rate climb much higher than it has ever been which I took as a sign we were moving in the right direction. Unfortunately this panda refresh has provided no signs of encouragement.

We only completed the first phase of removing and improving 2 weeks ago and I think google needs a full months stats to be confident about a site, maybe 2 or 3. It's also extremely possible we haven't done enough yet and there is still plenty of scope for improvement. We're now looking at images, page titles, navigation, everything that can improve the user experience.

Our stats suggest we are getting there and our improving conversion rate seems to confirm it, but the wait for panda confirmation goes on.

[seoskunk]

Well my tentative position in the top ten just came to a rather abrupt end so maybe the user data was not good, or maybe it will be back again .......

who knows?

[gehrlekrona]

@seoskunk, I have the same observation that Google is not sending as much traffic as the last 4-5 days. Bing and Yahoo picks up the slack as always but still not getting up to a good level of hits.
When hits are good the search is more focused and when the hits go down thew search is more generic. With focused I mean that someone searched for "blue widget in MA" for example.

[Bewenched]

@jinxed
I'm seeing about a 20% increase in traffic since the update on our ecommerce site. Guess they finally realized we weren't spammers.

[Rockzer]

Panda refreshed in India, or not ?

[edited by: Rockzer at 8:44 am (utc) on Jul 28, 2012]

[Rockzer]

Panda refreshed in India or not ?

[gehrlekrona]

Not sure where to post this, if it should go in the July SERP or in this thread.
yesterday I saw a 25% drop compared to the last week and today it is REALLY, REALLY slow. Some will probably say it's because of thew Olympic Games and maybe some of it is, but 25%? I don't think my demographics really care but maybe they do?!? Anybody else seing a drop like that? Did Google do a data refresh that was staying around for a couple of days for them to see and do some calculations on and then another refresh or was that the refresh that stayed around for a couple of days? My Impressions has, according to Google in WT gone up with 27% but I still don't know what all the numbers mean because my clicks always is between 200 and 250 on one site, no matter the impressions or anything else.

[klark0]

@gehrlekrona I'm also noticing some big movements yesterday. Traffic was lower than normal ..don't think I can blame the Olympics.
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:38 pm (utc) on Jul 28, 2012]
[edit reason] removed specific [/edit]

[mslina2002]

@gehrlekrona I noticed this too and posted in the main July thread.
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:39 pm (utc) on Jul 28, 2012]

[SnowMan68]

My Impressions has, according to Google in WT gone up with 27%

This typically lags a couple days behind, so you should only see the impressions up to Thursday (USA). Anything that happened on Friday will show up sometime tomorrow.

[SnowMan68]

@klark0

Our traffic was up for a Friday, highest ever for that day in fact.

Maybe penguin related...you'd think there would be refresh someday in the near future. Although it could be any one of the 40-50 updates they push live every month :)

[seoskunk]

I am tired confused and a bit cheesed off with Panda, every time I try and add content to a site it backfires, add links it backfires, improve design it backfires, improve speed it backfires, remove content it backfires, I could go on.............

I can honestly say that although not the best sites in their sector there are far worse ranking above them.

I feel like " We're caught in a trap "

[Martin Ice Web]

@seoskunk,

we are sitting in the same boat. Every change - witch i though it looks good to the user and would improve my rankings - kills my site a little more. But some silly sites still rank #1 and nailed on #1 where i would think they are doing keyword stuffing.

[seoskunk]

@Martin Ice Web

Yep is that boat we're on called the titanic or something?

I would love to just get away from it but have a family to feed so " I cant walk out "

I just think Google have Suspicious Minds what do you think?

[Martin Ice Web]

@seoskunk,

i donīt know what car google is driving.
I know that I did what Cutts said, put based on fact content on your site and it will go way up.
I did it for a lot of items. I realy gathered a lot of information to the specific items paired with my own experience. -> Down the drain. I seems the more I write the more I get down.
So I got a clue from a body here and I wil see if it works out.

So what bothers me is that Cutts said:
-do something different ( there was an exmaple with a frog )
Why on earth is amazon still #1 for so many queries, they donīt do anything special or give extra information, just a copy from manufacture driven databases. High technical sites with more information do not rank anymore.

[SnowMan68]

Why on earth is amazon still #1 for so many queries, they donīt do anything special or give extra information, just a copy from manufacture driven databases.

This is incredibly frustrating for a ton of webmasters I am sure. I know I am included in that boat. From a content stand point I believe what they provide (typically) is many reviews on millions of products. Reviews that can range anywhere from 100-1000 words in length. On a non content side, they are an enormous brand (with millions of links) and many people type "widget amazon" into Google search when looking for a product. I'm sure this is a signal that benefits them. Google wants to satisfy their users and I also bet that when a user clicks off the Google results into Amazon most of the time they do not click the back button instantly. Those are two signals that have to help Amazon rank high for millions of keywords. I can't imagine many of the smaller sites have that kind of power and that is something that is incredibly hard to fake.

[Martin Ice Web]

@snowman68,

u are right. But user reviews are not technical information nor is it established information. If this is the portion "extra" then I have to slow down my brain.User reviews can never ever compete with a "real "technical" review. But I think u a re right, thatīs what poeple want, in relation to the prevalent impression that amazon seems to have the lowest price ( which is not given anymore).

[claaarky]

@martin ice web
I truly think it is a mistake to try overcoming panda by adding more content unless you are really doing it for your users (which you may be, but it sounds like you may be doing it for google).

If your users don't like the new content (and in my experience people don't react well to content produced for google rather than humans) you are making things worse.

I think you hit the nail on the head in your reply to Snowman68. It's about what people want.

[robzilla]

Why on earth is amazon still #1 for so many queries, they donīt do anything special or give extra information

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but as a shopper I tend to have good experiences there. You're thinking too much along the lines of Panda here; the algorithm is so much broader than that. Have you considered that Amazon.com is among the best-linked domains in the world? That for years they have been spending bucketloads of cash on improving the user experience? I imagine that not having "anything special" on some pages, as compared to competitors, won't affect Amazon's rankings much -- there are simply too many other positive signals that tell Google (i.e. the algorithm) it's good to point users in their direction.

[diberry]

I'm seeing a definite little upward trend since the 24th - something along the lines of 8% increase in Google searches. As far as I can tell, I was never Pandalyzed, so I'm guessing I've just benefited from other people getting Pandalyzed, maybe. (I was definitely Penguinized, and still haven't recovered from that, though I'm not trying - wasn't doing SEO before Penguin, not going to start it now, LOL.)

[Martin Ice Web]

@claaarky,

no I donīt do it for google just for my users. If its permitted a short example.
Some < small electronic widgets > - before I only have technical information - now I added range of use, examples, pics, how to use info...
If this is for google? -I donīt think so. Sometime when google changes their algo, many poeple come and stay on our page, go through several pages, calling up or write an mail. But till panda this timeframes are where rare.

@robzilla, this is not the point I wanted to express.
Cutts said, they --> wanted <--- to level the playing field. But what this algo spits out is not a bit of "leveling", this is giving the big ones the big piece of cake. How to compete with that? Before panda we did successfully competed with amazon. Now amazon is almost every time #1 and non related sites are outranking ours.

edit: Is not that i want to denigrate amazon, in my niche they are king in other niches may be other big brands.
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:58 pm (utc) on Jul 29, 2012]
[edit reason] sorry, no specifics [/edit]

[netmeg]

They have the authority and the trust.

[Zivush]

Is not that i want to denigrate amazon, in my niche they are king in other niches may be other big brands.

I don't compete Amazon but others.
For us as webmasters, the best bet is to try learning what they do and give a better user experience for the same content.
Still, Google continues to give them more exposure, but as the time goes by, we keep our 'second best' position to become hopefully #1 one day.

[robzilla]

Cutts said, they --> wanted <--- to level the playing field

I believe that was in reference to an "over-optimization penalty," not necessarily Panda-related. See this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]

I do agree that, now more than ever, medium- to high-quality sites are outranked by lower-quality ones, and oftentimes I can't figure out why.