Google’s most recent algorithm update (A.K.A. Panda) is causing quite the stir in the land of SEO.
The main purpose of the update was to remove shallow sites, content farms, and sites overloaded with ads. According to a recent Wired.com article, it affected roughly 12% of all search results.
Even though Google claims this update mainly affected “low quality” sites, many people have unearthed examples of “high quality” sites that were also affected by the Panda update. Perhaps you were affected as well?
If you’ve been out here long enough you, this drill may look familiar…
– Google makes an algorithm update
– Those affected by the change frantically look for the “fix” to get their site back in good graces with Google
– Google assures everyone this update was necessary to provide more accurate and higher quality results
– Black hat SEOers once again set out to manipulate their links and content in efforts to game the new system
– Those who were “playing fair” and not affected by the update, sit back and watch the drama unfold because their rankings were virtually unchanged
“But Wait… I Was Playing Fair!”
It would be naive and irresponsible for me to say or imply that only “low quality” sites were affected. Of course, when there’s a massive update like this, some of the “high quality” sites are bound to get dinged by the new algorithm.
I’ve read a couple of stories about older, reputable sites with plenty of inbound links that were annihilated by the “Panda.” Based on what I’ve read, this update seemed to rattle the rankings of established sites more than previous updates.
That’s what is so frustrating about SEO. No one really knows what’s going on behind the scenes except Google. And even though their engineers assure us these updates are implemented to improve the overall quality of Google’s results, they always leave people speculating…
Is Google playing favorites and tweaking the algorithm to benefit their advertisers? And does that explain why JC Penney (one of Google’s top advertisers) was able to game the system for so long with their alleged “black hat” SEO tactics?
Why won’t Google be more consistent about removing “low quality” sites from their index?
Why doesn’t Google get more specific in their guidelines about the kinds of sites they will penalize? Is this so they can leave room for manual tweaks made to benefit top advertisers?
I want to make it clear that these statements do not necessarily reflect my beliefs and views. I certainly understand why some would draw these conclusions. Nevertheless, I have no proof. I am just summarizing a lot of the banter that is going around since the Panda update.
If Your Rankings Dropped…
I’ve been mildly impacted by these updates before, and one thing I can tell you is, “Don’t panic.” If you are truly using white hat techniques and are developing original content, things will settle down and it’s likely your rankings will return.
Of course, nothing is guaranteed and it’s all the more reason you should never rely on one source of traffic for your business. It’s easy to get complacent and feel as if Google somehow owes you these rankings you’ve had all these years.
Remember this. Google is a business and they don’t owe or guarantee us anything. While I’d love to believe that all the high-quality sites will continue to thrive with top rankings for years and years, no one really knows what lies ahead for Google and their algorithm.
The only thing that’s constant is change. Google will keep doing what they think is best for their business, and your rankings will continue to fluctuate. Sometimes you’ll win. Sometimes you’ll lose.
I still believe that most “high quality” sites will be OK in the long run, but what if your site is suddenly penalized? If nothing else, let these algorithm updates remind you why your marketing strategy should involve more than Google.com.
Actually, I didn’t know to much about the Google’s Panda or the recent Google algorithm. But, since a month ago, my site was turn down both of traffic and the alexa rank. Is it called by affected the Google’s Panda? If yes, what should I do?
Hi Lisa,
I’m new to your site and quite happy to have found your infomative articles quite by accident. Thank you for the valuable information you generously share.
Regarding “Google Panda” thankfully I didn’t seem to suffer. If anything, certain pages on my sites are doing a little better that weren’t before. Still, if there is one thing I have learned over the last 4 years I have been at this, never get too comfortable. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to continuously improve, or that we can’t truly feel good about a success, or even go to the other extreme and throw in the towel.
This reminds me alot of when Google first dropped a webpage. It felt so personal and I think at the time, I got quite teary-eyed over it. But, I was totally new and trying hard to succeed and “do it right” to please the powers that be.
This still happens from time to time, but now I don’t pay any attention. The pages eventually bounce back, at last they have luckily for me. I just realize that no matter what, Google will continuously evolve, and I have to just keep plugging along as best I can in the best way I know how.
Really, what else can you do?
I didn’t knew this much about google panda. Thanks for creating this awareness by writing a post related to it.
No progress withour change. I think if you are playing fair then you have nothing to worry about. i don’t understand why these well established ‘cosha’ sites would have anything to worry about if they were playing fair. Google should keep this up as it allows for a more level playing field for the people who work hard at what they do and not cheat their way up.
Traffic has been affected negatively by Panda on 2 of my sites, including my main blog, but after a short dip all my other sites, including both of my business sites, have recovered nicely. Overall I don’t worry about it because I figure that’s just how traffic goes sometimes.
Good information there will always be something that will rain on our parade hopefully we all will avoid the Google Panda have success!!
Lisa
Hi every body,
This has been a great discussion and sharing of views. Though a guy like me who is getin less than 100 views a day has nothing to worry about panda boy i guess.
Deal with ya later panda. hehe
I personally feel Google has done the right thing. Sites giving quality contents should get more visitors not the sites with more ads.
My site is only two months old .. I have a 0 page rank, I use to only get search engines traffic for only a certain posts but now my other posts are getting notice too… So I guess I’m good
Make a quality site, best quality time that allow you to do, and stop worrying about PANDA, after all why bother with a cute bear and fool who spends his life eating bamboo,,, hehheheheeh
My PR has stayed the same but I have lost my sitelinks.
I was proud of my sitelinks so let’s hope I get them back.
What a naughty Panda. LOL
My blog remained untouched by this Farmer/Panda update. It is bad to see that many good sites with quality backlinks and content were also affected but well it is Google and we really do not know much about what they do. I think it is important for us to not depend only only one source of traffic that is SE traffic and now even social media has become a great source of getting traffic
I had page rank 3 before the update…. after update I was pushed back to page rank 0!!
Hi Lisa, your point is clear. We have to bring good quality and useful contents to our website visitor. I think Google make a great effort to bring the best for their user. Thanks for sharing…
i currently own a dozen plus niche websites that are all profitable and are doing very well with seo (organic traffic is high). i noticed 2 experience a drop in average daily uniques but the rest are fine. my methodology has remained consistent over time, so it is difficult to pinpoint the cause and effect involved. i agree with Lisa that most websites will be just fine – the true content farms / aggregators should be and will be penalized
The truth is that I did get slapped pretty hard for one of my sites, but it made me realized that I really wasn’t providing the best information there. So I had taken that in a good way.
my main sites are ok. they didnt seem to lose any rankings. of course test sites dont ever get indexed so i cant comment on them. it’s probably a good thing with panda because it separates good sites from their pop up copycat clones. i’ve seen two clones of 2createawebsite and they are both pretty much dead in the water. when will web masters ever learn?
Roger Chartier…. Head over to websitebabble
Well, well, well! Some of my keywords for one of my site was deeply affected! By the Panda-monium? I guess, they were doing well all along – until now! But, like you said “Sometimes you’ll win. Sometimes you’ll lose.” Google owes me nothing!
On the up and up! I will keep doing what I love to do, and try to do it well! Hopefully, my rankings will improve again in the near future! Also, I am grateful my other sites were not affected!
I have several active websites and a few blogs. I spend a lot of time working at making a living from Adsense with pretty good content, ranging from history to taxes to motorcycles.
My traffic is cut in half on one site and a little better on others. My income has dropped to about 20% of what it was. This doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Any body have any ideas why?
Hi Gustavo,
I’m not sure how many article directories where affected, some are still ok I think. Check the traffic stats at Alexa and on Google trends before you post to make sure they’re still getting traffic.
You don’t have to stick to article sites though. Web 2.0 platforms can be just as useful. Several of them seemed to almost know what Google was up to before they let the Panda out of the cage. Hubpages is always good (A Google site) and Xomba.com recently made big changes and now is much more like a classy article site. I think Squidoo is still ok too and I’ve read a few things about Buzzle thought I’ve not yet looked at it myself.
Just make sure you read the terms and guidelines for posting at each site as they’re all a little bit different.
Hope it helps and good luck.
Regards,
Tim
Lisa. I love this blog!!!!OMG. I am amazed. I have one question. Please what thesis skin are you using? How did you make your posts appear in blocks on your homepage? Is this a feature in thesis i dont know about?
I know you are very busy. I will appreciate your reply.
I am a fellow sbier.
I haven’t seen any changes on my site, but that is due that is just 2 months old and I have only been doing basic link building.
I did get affected by it though, because I had just started my article marketing campaign and the article directories were probably the most affected by this Google Panda.
I will still go with my article marketing campaign, but anything I get from it will be a bonus as I don’t really expect much after this algorithm change.
I notice no change in my SEO rankings… I am getting the same amount of traffic and more sometimes as I was getting earlier
I guess I wasn’t attacked by the Google Panda but then again my site is still very new so I wasn’t even concerned about it.
On the other hand and a little off topic I am still wondering why are you using a subdomain for your blog and not a folder structure for it.
I’m pretty sure there is an explanation for this, it just continues to haunt me why some people say it’s wrong and some people say it’s the way to go.
Great blog, great info, I’m definitely going to follow you more closely Lisa, have a great day! 😉
~Sergio
Hey Lisa,
Very good article…as always.
With regard to the widespread panic; that’s just the typical media frenzy that seems to occur around nearly everything these days. We can choose whether or not to buy into it. Look out for some of the “Gurus” releasing new products that show how to get traffic & then avoid them. 😉
There are some issues around a number of sites that allow content to be posted. Although most people will only post quality content some will not and with intention. So even top sites can contain some poor or bad quality content and the main worry naturally is that favourite marketing methods will be affected i.e. article marketing.
Whether we get penalised by association remains to be seen but so far it doesn’t look to be the case. Perhaps the sites suffering the most would do better to delve into their own sites and make adjustments rather than point the finger of blame elsewhere.
The truth about all of this is that Google actually tells you what it wants and in many cases shows you how to go about it. Its not even firework science. They’re trying to root out the cheats, scammers and spammers and give the rest of us a fighting chance. (As well as themselves of course).
If you do it properly and stroke the Google monster (niiiice Google) you’ll always do ok, as opposed to wearing a stupid hat and poking it with a stick, <|:-(
Massive Tip: Online shopping for physical products is currently Google's new big thing. They're apparently getting a bit fed up with e-products and that's really where most of the trouble started in the first place. (E-bay got onto that several years back).
I posted the wrong twitter id…
I have been struggling a little bit with my site’s placement in Google searches. But, this week my site has moved up significantly in the searches I am concerned about. My fresh, new content is starting to be rewarded. Good for Google.
2 of my sites were effected but overall the others stayed the same.
This algorythym change along with past ones, and the fact that some of my sites have been doing the google dance for over a year, make me more adamant to not depend on google for traffic.
The problem with that is it’s hard to find other ways to get significant traffic other than google. I’d love ideas for other traffic sources.
I don’t think my site was effected negatively with the change, but I was wondering where do find what the new algorithm is and what Google likes and dislikes. Thanks for the post…
I am reading a lot about this change. How ofter does google do major changes? I am assuming just a couple times a year?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for this post Lisa. I have several sites and after the new Google algorithm some of my sites dropped in rank and some increased. Of the sites that dropped in rank – I wasn’t pleased – the sites had original content and I don’t know why they dropped. One of my sites is a game site and so its content isn’t all that original because I’m mostly using other people’s games on it. I’m in the process of learning to develop my own flash games so that I can get rid of the duplicate content issue for that site.
What I’ve decided is to proceed with my sites without taking Google’s ranking algorithm into account and just create content for the sites as if Google doesn’t even exist. I’ve also started looking into alternate traffic generation resources such as banner exchange programs.
Fortunately I wasn’t affected this time around but have felt the devastating affects of an algo change in the past to know how many people are feeling right now, it does get better after some hair pulling. But although it hasn’t affected me this time, reading other sites problems has reminded me the importance of marketing my site along other avenues and not just relying on Google.
“you should never rely on one source of traffic for your business”
Very good advice. I think what Google did was a logical step on their part. In the end, it’s all about ensuring quality of the search results.
Sites using article marketing to get their traffic and links will go down in the search results, but if they were careful enough, the loss wouldn’t be so great.
Of course there’s bound to be collateral damage and it’s understandable to get frustrated if you get penalized for nothing, but once the dust settles, I’m sure things will go back to normal.
I survived, but eHow is one of the main competitors in my niche. Google gave Demand Media a huge raise!
I just did a search on how to remove backsplashes.
eHow gets the top four listings. It’s pathetic.
Good thing my site is tiny now. I’ll build it up with real content and dominate.
Hello Lisa….I wanted to stop by and say congratulations and to keep up the good work.
……………………………………………………….
I’m having some serious issues with my site will you please take a look at it and give me a few pointers. IM BEGGING LISA lol
I have not made page rank, and inbound links my main focus. Main focus is to provide content that brings people to my site.
It’s funny that people make such a big deal about this when, like you said and others echoed, they don’t OWE us anything!
Plus, for the people that really worry about a change in algorithm, aren’t they in it for the wrong reasons? Sure, if web development was my full-time job/business, I’d be a little concerned if my rankings dropped, but in reality, if you’ve done thing correctly, when the dust settles, you’ll be right where you should be.
Lastly, I’m not gonna lie, those guys at Google are plain and simply smarter than me when it comes to all that and it’s in their best interest to have the best sites ranked highest. Therefore, if mine isn’t up there, that’s my own problem that I need to fix and complaining about it certainly isn’t going to get me anywhere.
That said, I did have an interesting effect of this change: my overall Alexa ranking didn’t really change, but my U.S. ranking dropped from about 40,000 to 50,000. Weird, but it’s all good. I guess that means I have some work to do!
I haven’t really noticed any change to my blogs. However, the main thing is that one of my blogs gets loads of search engine traffic anyway. It used to be PR4, but dropped to PR3 in one of the recent updates. And yet it still outranks some huge blogs in the same niche 🙂
My previous site wasn’t effected and I used way to many ads. That site was pretty low quality in my opinion. I’ve learned a lot from the past experience and will be putting that towards my new sites. I just hope Google doesn’t turn into big brother
I was overall helped, but also slightly hurt. In late September I launched a new blog that had two PR2 blogs 301 redirected to it. I had hoped that the new blog (with 52 backlinks) would be a 2 at the next update, but it stayed a PR0.
On the far more important plus side, my search traffic from Google has tripled over the last two weeks.
Lisa,
Another great post! Your last comment is exactly why I came back to your site today. I am looking for advice on marketing my website outside of Google.
My site is unusual in that it doesn’t have content like other sites or blogs and I’m looking for advertising or some other method of driving traffic without breaking the bank.
I plan on reviewing your past articles to start but any additional comments here would be appreciated.
Keep up the good work.
This post made me check the stats for my websites. Still in good shape!
As long as their updates make others play the game the way I play it, I’m cool.
Nice summary of the Google Panda. I’ve been untouched by this update, but it’s imperative that we do not become complacent. White hat SEO is definitely the route to go.
Google is just doing what it does best, which is to confuse the spammers in hopes they give up on making spammy websites..but I’m like Lisa..just keep making good content and the rest will take care of its self..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
Finally a post that isn’t going crazy about Google update. Everyone is panicking and it is getting on my nerves so bad.
Of course, this is something I expected from you and proud to say I have the same opinion 🙂
I think their keyword tool is affected by their advertisers a lot and I always use additional ones to make sure I have the right keywords chosen. As you say, they are after all a business and they work for themselves. They don’t owe us anything.
Thanks, Lisa, for sharing your thoughts on this Panda, wish I had one cute like the one in the photo, lol.
Brilliant Post Lisa!
Best I have seen on the Panda so far.
And Brankica, totally agree with your entire Comment!
I noticed my PR dropped, and I have been using UAW and blog farms to backlink various posts. Think this has had an affect to a point. Definitely noticed a drop in traffic on many of my niche sites too btw.
Damn you Google.
All good now though
I wasn’t affected, but I am always looking out for when Google changes their algorithm. As you said about Google, “they don’t owe or guarantee us anything”, and they “will keep doing what they think is best for their business.”
It is interesting to see how many people get angry at Google when their rankings drop. It is like they think Google should reward them or help them with ranking well. Building a site properly takes time, and is a long journey. Much like anything in life, there will be ups and downs – but it is important to look at the long-term goals instead of just focusing on the near-term.
Excellent advice, Lisa! Thank you for chiming in on this subject.
My site is only two months old .. I have a 0 page rank, I use to only get search engines traffic for only a certain posts but now my other posts are getting notice too… So I guess I’m good