WebProNews

Tag: Panda

  • More On Google Panda And The Core Update

    More On Google Panda And The Core Update

    This week saw a couple of major pieces of SEO news. One was the aftermath of a Google Core algorithm update, which rolled out about a week ago. The other is that the infamous Panda algorithm is now baked into that core algorithm.

    Have you noticed any significant Google changes since the update? Let us know in the comments.

    There has been a whole lot of chatter about both of these pieces of news, and while they’re both very much related, the consensus is that while Panda is now part of the core algorithm, the core algorithm update was not Panda-related.

    While that may be the case, much like Panda, the update did seem to take content quality and “thickness” (as opposed to “thin,” which Panda was always designed to combat) into consideration as well as freshness. Searchmetrics, which often releases lists of winners and losers from major Google updates, released some analysis about this core update.

    The firm found gains for sites with “current” or “holistic”content, referring to those covering a topic comprehensively.

    “One of the top winners from this update according to Searchmetrics’ analysis is gq.com,” a spokesperson for Searchmetrics tells us. “On gq.com the biggest winning URL is a comprehensive article about NFL star Tom Brady. The article contains photos and a video and a lot of text (more than 3000 words including an interview).”

    Other winners included time.com, qz.com, howstuffworks.com, politico.com, and inquisitr.com. Educational game sites like brainpop.com and mathplayground.com also gained.

    “According to Searchmetrics, whether a publisher or brands won or lost for a specific keyword is dependent on the individual QDF (query deserves freshness) score that Google calculates – this is linked to whether the topic/search relates to current news and events and user behavior, particularly search volume,” the spokesperson says. “For topics that are current, publishers with current content witnessed visibility gains.”

    The biggest loser, according to the report, was TheAtlantic.com, which it says has primarily lost with old URLs that ranked for brand keywords and entities.

    This is rather interesting as The Atlantic does publish a lot of in-depth and “thick” content.

    Searchmetrics notes that the trend is not noticeable in international markets yet, suggesting the update hasn’t rolled out on a global level so far.

    Find their full analysis here.

    On the Panda front, Rusty Brick’s Barry Schwartz has been all over Google spokespeople about the news that it’s part of the core algorithm. He recaps a response to one of his questions by John Mueller in a Webmaster video, which you can watch below (start at the 28 minute mark), “The Panda scores assigned to a site (yes, it is a site wide score) is still not done in real time and not done as part of the core algorithm run. So even with Panda being part of the core algorithm, it doesn’t mean Panda sites will see recovery when a core algorithm is confirmed to have been run by Google.”

    He also points to this comment on Google+ from Google’s Garry Illyes, who responded to a question about if the Panda change means it will be updated automatically as opposed to manually (even if not in real time): “We do continue to update the data which is used to recognize high quality sites, and we roll that data out over time. Sometimes we have to make manual updates, sometimes it’s automatic, but that generally doesn’t play a role in how the data is rolled out.”

    Schwartz culled the following words from Mueller in another hangout (below – start at 31 minutes):

    As part of the core algorithm, you probably wouldn’t see those kind of updates happening. That’s something that’s just kind of rolling, rolling right along, so it’s not so much like in the past where you’d see on this date, this actually changed, and we, we updated that. So that’s something kind of something as a more rolling algorithm you wouldn’t really see the individual cut dates of specific parts of the data.

    …

    It’s not real time, in the sense that, we don’t crawl URLs and have that data immediately. So it’s something we kind of have to bundle together, understand the data, and have that updated. And we do that on more a rolling basis now so that when one is finished, the next one kind of starts. So it’s real time if you look at a really big scale in that things are happening all the time, but it’s not real time in the sense that every second there is a new value that’s being produced based on new a new data point that we have.

    …

    I think what you would usually see is that this is just kind of a subtle move from one to the other thing, as things kind of roll out. So it’s not that you would even notice this cycle.

    Finally, he points to another Google+ comment from Illyes:

    …Imagine an engine of a car. It used to be that there was no starter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starter_(engine)), the driver had to go in front of the car, and use some tool to start the engine. Today we have starters in any petrol engine, it’s integrated. It became more convenient, but essentially nothing changed.
    For a user or even a webmaster it should not matter at all which components live where, it’s really irrelevant, and that’s why I think people should focus on these “interesting” things less.

    Just remember, if you’re worried about Panda and want a good idea about some things to focus on, Google endorsed this guide from Jennifer Slegg.

    Meanwhile, Google is expected to roll out the new and much anticipated Penguin, which it has been teasing for many months. It’s still expected to launch this month, but that’s not set in stone.

    Are you most concerned with Panda, this most recent update, or the Pending penguin update? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via YouTube

  • An Important Change To Google’s Panda

    An Important Change To Google’s Panda

    The Google Panda Update has been around for five years and has dominated more headlines than probably any other Google algorithm change over that time. It was so big that it transcended industry press, making headlines from more mainstream media outlets. An important change has been made with Panda, and it affects how Google utilizes it from here on out.

    Has Panda improved Google’s search results over the past five years in your opinion? Let us know what you think.

    Webmasters and SEOs saw some big changes in Google rankings late last week. Some speculated that it was Google finally unleashing the “huge” Penguin update it has been promising (but delaying) for months. It was not. Google confirmed to inquiring minds on Twitter that it was a core update and not Penguin-related.

    As of this writing, we’re still waiting on Penguin. For a significant part of 2015, we heard it would likely happen before the end of the year, but it never came. Last month, Google admitted it wasn’t going to happen, hinting that it would likely come in January, but even that was not set in stone.

    Last week, Google Google’s Gary Illyes, who often responds to webmaster questions, including those about Penguin (even though he’s not on the actual team that works on it), said he hadn’t seen any experiment results from the upcoming update yet:

    As you probably know by now, this Penguin update is supposed to go real-time, so it will continuously update without webmasters having to wait forever for a refresh if they happen to be impacted by it and need to make changes to their site to recover visibility in search results.

    So this most recent update wasn’t Penguin. It was a core update. On a related note, it has come out (and been confirmed by Google) that Panda is actually now part of the core update. This means that there will no longer be specifically Panda updates.

    This week, Jennifer Slegg at The SEM Post released “Understanding Google Panda: Definitive Algo Guide for SEOs“. This features a notable quote from Google:

    “Panda is an algorithm that’s applied to sites overall and has become one of our core ranking signals. It measures the quality of a site, which you can read more about in our guidelines. Panda allows Google to take quality into account and adjust ranking accordingly.”

    Also noteworthy is that Slegg’s guide was endorsed by Illyes, practically (for all intents and purposes) equating it to the official go-to document on the subject. No, Google didn’t quite say that, but with this kind of endorsement, it seems just about as good:

    “When Panda first launched (and initially known as Farmer, for those who want to go digging through the archives) was a separate spam filter,” writes Slegg. “This meant that it was a filter that was applied to the search results after the core ranking algo as a completely separate piece. But now, Panda is rolled into the core ranking algo.”

    “This also means that core ranking algo changes, such as the one we have been seeing over the last few days that Google confirmed is NOT Penguin, could technically be Panda, although we have no confirmation of whether it is or isn’t,” she adds. “But now there is a possibility of any core ranking changes could be connected to Panda.”

    It’s interesting that Panda has made it to this stage after roughly five years of existence. From the early days, it’s been a controversial update. It’s affected many businesses for better or for worse (and let’s be honest, we mostly just hear about the worse), but now Google feels confident enough in Panda’s effectiveness to “bake” it right into the secret sauce.

    Panda has always been about rewarding high quality content. Don’t forget, you always have this guidance Google provided after the initial Panda roll-out to help you assess your site and how Google might view it in terms of quality.

    Do you think Google baking Panda into the core algorithm is a smart move? Has Panda done its job better as time has progressed? Share your thoughts.

  • Don’t Do This If You’ve Been Hit By Google’s Panda Update

    Don’t Do This If You’ve Been Hit By Google’s Panda Update

    Google’s Panda update has been around since February 2011 and continues to wreak havoc on websites when it finds content issues. Sometimes it’s not clear that the site suffering Panda’s wrath actually deserved to be algorithmically penalized. Either way, some sites have been hit really hard by it over the years, and one tactic that has sometimes been employed has been to delete content. Don’t do that.

    Do you think deleting content is a good idea when you’re trying to recover from Panda? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Perhaps the most famous victim of Panda over the years has been Demand Media – particularly its eHow property. The site was largely considered to be a content farm, which is precisely the type of site expected to be targeted by the algorithm update. Even though eHow escaped Panda when it first launched, the algorithm eventually caught up to it in a big way. In an effort to recover its Google traffic, Demand Media redesigned the site and deleted a ton of content of questionable quality. In 2012, it looked like things were looking good again for the site, but that didn’t last. The company has since had to become less reliant on Google as such a big chunk of its traffic.

    These days, you can Google “how to fix a toilet,” which would be a prime example of the type of query you might legitimately expect eHow to rank for, and eHow is nowhere in the top results.

    Google is now flat out saying that you might not want to delete content in response to Panda. Google’s Gary Illyes said on Twitter, “We don’t recommend removing content in general for Panda, rather add more highQ stuff.”

    SEO Barry Schwartz, who first reported on Illyes’ comments, says, “Now Gary is saying generally it does not make sense to remove content. Generally you should improve your site. But the sites that are hit badly by Panda, often have serious structural issues with the site where they can consolidate content and remove a lot of the pages. I’d say generally, removing or consolidating content is the approach most SEOs take to tackle Panda issues. But Gary is saying otherwise.”

    Illyes went on in a series of tweets to say, “We see way too many people cut the good [content]. Careful what you trim…use search analytics: look for pages that don’t satisfy users’ information need for the queries they rank for…Thin content: make it better, make it…thick and ADD more highQ stuff….Don’t remove content someone might find useful…What you really need is content created with care for the users, that’s it.”

    In other words, just avoid getting rid of stuff and focus on improving the stuff you already have. Depending on how big your site is, that could be easier said than done, but that is the guidance you’re getting right from Google itself.

    Illyes did have additional advice at PubCon. Jennifer Slegg reports (via Search Engine Roundtable):

    While responding, Illyes did make an interesting recommendation for those who are removing thin content for Panda reasons. Rather than simply use a 404 or a 410, he strongly recommends that webmasters should use noindex on those pages, ensure those pages are listed in the sitemap or add them to the sitemap and then submit the sitemap to Google.

    Of course Google has a list of 23 questions to ask yourself about your site and content when it comes to high quality versus thin:

    1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?

    2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?

    3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?

    4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?

    5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

    6. Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

    7. Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?

    8. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?

    9. How much quality control is done on content?

    10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?

    11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?

    12. Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?

    13. Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?

    14. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?

    15. Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?

    16. Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?

    17. Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?

    18. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?

    19. Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?

    20. Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

    21. Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

    22. Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?

    23. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

    These have been around for years, but it never hurts to take a look again to remind yourself just what Google is looking for when it evaluates quality.

    The latest Panda refresh is still rolling out. Illyes appeared at SMX East last week and said this is the case. Google always said it would be a slow roll-out, and it wasn’t kidding. It began in mid-July. If you were waiting to recover after being hit by a previous Panda update/refresh, you may still have a shot (assuming that you’ve taken steps to fix the problems that got you hit by the update in the first place).

    Penguin is expected to return before the end of the year.

    After seeing these comments from Google, do you still think there’s a case for removing content to recover from Panda? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Google Gives Updates On Panda, Penguin

    Google Gives Updates On Panda, Penguin

    Wondering what’s going on with Google’s Panda and Penguin updates? Well, not much has changed, but the company did address both at an industry conference.

    At SMX East, Google’s Gary Illyes reportedly said that the last Panda refresh is STILL rolling out. They had said up front that it was going to be a slow roll-out, and they were not kidding.

    It began in mid-July, and now it’s October, still going. So if you were still waiting to recover after being hit by a previous Panda update/refresh, you may still have a shot (assuming that you’ve taken steps to fix the problems that got you hit by the update in the first place).

    Penguin, on the other hand, has not come back around yet, though it shouldn’t be too much longer. Google’s John Mueller said last week that he expected it to happen before the end of the year.

    According to Search Engine Land, Illeyes said it will be in the “foreseeable future” and that he “hopes” it will be before the end of the year. He also reiterated that it will the real-time version that Google has been talking about for quite some time.

    Image via Google

  • Webmasters Suspect A Reverse In Google’s Latest Panda Update

    Webmasters Suspect A Reverse In Google’s Latest Panda Update

    Google began rolling out its latest Panda refresh in July, and made it pretty clear that it would be a very slow roll-out. Presumably it’s still in the process as they said it would take a few months to complete.

    Google indicated that it was going so slowly because of some technical issues (as opposed to purposely trying to confuse SEOs). As the slow roll-out continues, some webmasters suspect that Google may have reversed the refresh as sites that were seeing a healthy recovery are starting to lose ground again.

    That includes Barry Schwartz’s Search Engine Roundtable, which had fallen victim to Panda for some reason that’s still hard to wrap one’s head around. He’s reporting that his own data in addition to data from “the SEO community at large” show that some sites who saw a positive impact from the refresh are seeing the impact be reversed.

    Schwartz points to forum threads and tweets from others who are seeing this happen with a variety of websites. He also shares a look at his own stats in which you can see where his organic Google traffic went up after the refresh began to roll out, but has been on the decline more recently.

    A decline in Google traffic doesn’t necessarily mean Panda, but given that this has apparently been a common occurrence among sites who had begun to see recovery, it does seem to be related.

    Google recently indicated that it is shifting its infrastructure towards “more continuous changing and gradual rolling out of Panda, incorporated into their core ranking algorithms.”

    They still have work to do, but that’s the goal. It may still be a while before this is really the case.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Said A Little More About The Panda Refresh

    Google Said A Little More About The Panda Refresh

    Google has said before that its most recent Panda refresh would roll out slowly, taking months instead of day. It is a global refresh.

    It has also said that it is going so slowly because of technical issues rather than trying to confuse webmasters and SEOs.

    Search Engine Land is sharing some new details about the latest Panda after speaking with unnamed sources at Google.

    For one, Google reportedly said it’s shifting its infrastructure towards “more continuous changing and gradual rolling out of Panda, incorporated into their core ranking algorithms.”

    They still have work to do, but that’s the goal. This is pretty much along the lines of stuff we’ve heard before, but this is an update illustrating that it may still be a while before this is really the case.

    They also told SEL that Panda may hit different pages on a site at different times and in different ways despite it being a side-wide action. Some pages could be hurt more than others. Ultimately, you won’t know if you’re being affected by it for sure until the whole, slow roll-out completes. We’re assuming Google will indicate to webmasters when it is actually done. I’m sure people will hound them about it until they spill the beans either way.

    Finally, the company indicated to SEL that the same Panda advice they gave back in 2011 still applies today. That would essentially be a list of 23 questions to ask yourself about the quality of your site.

    None of what Google is saying is likely to make webmasters feel much better about their situation if they’ve already been impacted by the refresh or if they’re trying to recover from the previous one and not seeing results so far. That said, there have been reports of signs of recovery.

    Given that the roll-out is so slow, we don’t really know what types of sites are suffering the most and getting the most benefit out of the refresh. That will have to be evaluated after it completes.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Here’s Why Google’s Panda Update Is So Slow

    Here’s Why Google’s Panda Update Is So Slow

    Google’s latest Panda refresh is running really slowly, which pretty much adds insult to injury for sites negatively impacted by the previous one, which rolled out all the way back in October. When that one rolled out, Google implied that things would start moving with it more smoothly.

    After that, it took a surprisingly long time for Google to finally push out this latest refresh. It began rolling out about two weeks ago, but the company also said that it would take months to complete, though it is a global roll-out.

    We now have some insight into just why Google is being so slow with this one. Google Webmaster Trends analyst John Mueller participated in one of his regular webmaster hangouts and explained the technical difficulties associated with the Panda refresh.

    Search Engine Land points to the relevant section of the hour-long video with this transcript:

    This is [Panda rollout] actually, pretty much a similar update to before. For technical reasons we are rolling it out a bit slower. It is not that we are trying to confuse people with this. It is really just for technical reasons. So, it is not that we are crawling slowly. We are crawling and indexing normal, and we are using that content as well to recognize higher quality and lower quality sites. But we are rolling out this information in a little bit more slower way. Mostly for technical reasons. It is not like we are making this process slower by design, it is really an internal issue on our side.

    Ok, well he didn’t really “explain” the technical difficulties so much as explain that there ARE technical issues at the root of why the refresh is so slow.

    I don’t know that any of this will be of much comfort to sites waiting for a chance to regain lost search visibility, but at least it’s something.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Is Google’s Latest Panda Refresh Too Slow?

    Is Google’s Latest Panda Refresh Too Slow?

    Last Friday, Google confirmed that it had finally begun rolling out a refresh to its infamous Panda algorithm the prior weekend. It’s still rolling out as the company said it would take “a few months” to complete.

    Are Google’s Panda refreshes too slow and far between? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    The update, Google’s Gary Illyes said, affects 2 – 3% of queries.

    The refresh is particularly noteworthy because it took Google so long to actually launch it despite telling webmasters it’s trying to do these things more quickly. And that’s important because websites that are impacted have to wait for a refresh for a chance to recover any lost visibility in the search engines.

    The previous Panda refresh came as long ago as October. At that point, Google indicated Panda would pretty much continue indefinitely. It would seem that this wasn’t quite the case, even if that is still Google’s ultimate goal.

    While you may have no sympathy for sites that are negatively impacted by Panda if they’re producing the type of content that the update was designed to target (thin, low-quality content), there are cases when the update also negatively impacts higher quality stuff. In those cases, the long wait for a chance to recover is a little more disturbing.

    A few years ago, for example, IT discussion community DaniWeb was hit by the algorithm despite being a forum with a solid user base and being the kind of site that provides helpful answers for real problems that people have.

    Not even a popular site like Metafilter is immune to Google’s wrath.

    A more recent and maybe even a better example would be Search Engine Roundtable. This is one of the go-to industry blogs for SEO with content exclusively from a long-term veteran of the industry, often with direct quotes from Google itself. It’s not the type of site you would expect Panda to go after, yet last October, that’s exactly what happened. Under the new refresh, the site is indeed recovering even if gradually.

    Ironically, it is the author of this very site, Barry Schwartz, that broke (and confirmed) the news that Google finally launched its refresh.

    Schwartz is seeing continued improvement since the latest refresh, he’s still waiting to get back to where he was before the Panda hit in October.

    “There is plenty of room to grow but hopefully as the new Panda scores hit all my pages, recovery will come back in line with what it was before Panda 4.1 hit this site,” he writes.

    Despite Schwartz’s reports, some questioned the authenticity of the news of a Panda refresh actually occurring, but Illyes confirmed it directly on Twitter:

    It’s also a global roll-out, by the way:

    With this one being such a slow rollout, it’s hard (and unnecessary) to say who the real winners and losers are at this point. It’s going to be a while before we really have an idea. In fact, Searchmetrics, which regularly publishes lists of apparent winners and losers for major Google updates, says there’s no pattern yet.

    “It is not yet possible to detect a clear pattern regarding the winners and losers in the rankings, nor is it possible to correlate these results with specific aspects of the Panda update,” said Searchmetrics founder Marcus Tober. “In this regard, we expect to see changes in the SERPs over the coming weeks. We will continue to observe the data and keep you updated on this page about the effects of the Panda update.”

    In the meantime, it might not be a bad idea to review Google’s 23 questions you should ask yourself about the quality of the content on your site.

    Google has said in the past that Panda should help small businesses, but it’s unclear to what extent this has actually happened. We tend to hear more about the businesses that get hurt by it (which are sometimes forced to reduce their staff).

    Have you been waiting for this latest Panda refresh to come? Have you been impacted by it one way or another so far? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Google Updates Webmasters On Panda and Penguin

    Google Updates Webmasters On Panda and Penguin

    At the SMX Advanced conference on Tuesday, Google’s Gary Illyes made some comments about what webmasters will be able to expect from Google with regards to its Panda and Penguin updates in the near future.

    April saw Google’s transparency being called into question again in light of mixed messages it had been sending about both updates – both of which can have devastating impacts on businesses who meet their negative sides. Google had suggested that having to wait months between the updates would not happen any longer, but later indicated the opposite. This matters because businesses and websites impacted by them have to wait until Google runs them again before they have any hope of getting their search rankings back after making changes to try to get back in Google’s good graces.

    So what’s the latest?

    SMX-affiliated industry blog Search Engine Land recaps Illyes’ comments on both algorithms. He reportedly said that the next Panda update will happen in the next two to four weeks. SEL’s Barry Schwartz reports:

    Illyes referred to it multiple times as a data refresh, not an algorithmic change. So sites that have been suffering from this algorithm may see a recovery in the near future. However, not all sites will see a recovery: Some may not recover, and new sites may also be hit by this data refresh.

    Illyes also reportedly reiterated that Panda still requires manual updates, so it won’t run by itself over time. It sounds like webmaters and businesses will just have to continue to wait on Google for a chance to recover, and it also sounds like this may never change.

    Regarding Penguin, Illyes apparently didn’t indicate that an update or refresh is immediately on the horizon, but said they are trying to make that one run continuously, which would be great news for those impacted by it. Unfortunately, it will probably be “months” before that happens.

    The last Penguin update was launched in Q4, and Google indicated that it would pretty much continue indefinitely. It would seem that this wasn’t quite the case, even if that is still Google’s ultimate goal.

    Image via @mattcutts

  • Is Google’s Panda Not Doing Its Job Well Enough?

    Is Google’s Panda Not Doing Its Job Well Enough?

    Google has been advising webmasters against publishing thin content for years. In fact, the famous/infamous Panda update was designed to weed thin content out of the high rankings of Google’s search results. Obviously that hasn’t completely deterred websites from producing it.

    Do you think the Panda update has done its job well? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    Some webmasters who have been affected by the update are still waiting on Google to launch a Panda refresh. There hasn’t been one that we know of for something like seven months, which is highly unusual for Panda historically. Last week there was some talk that one may have launched, but Google denied this.

    Depending on who you ask, the effectiveness of Panda has always been questionable, which is somewhat disturbing considering it has the power to kill businesses and jobs (not that this is exclusive to Panda). In recent months, the update has really come into question, considering that it apparently had a negative impact on one of the most authoritative blogs in the SEO industry.

    Perhaps it’s taking so long for Google to push out a new Panda update because it knows it has some serious flaws. I’m only speculating.

    The company reportedly just blasted out “mass manual actions,” sending webmasters warnings about thin content. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reports:

    it seems like over the weekend, Google has issued mass manual actions over “Thin content with little or no added value.”

    It seems Google went after a content network and located many of the sites participating in this network and then slapping them with thin content manual actions. I do not have confirmation from Google but I received a couple notes about it over the weekend from anonymous sources and there are many threads in the various forums with people complaining about these thin content actions.

    Again, such penalties are nothing new, but that doesn’t mean everybody getting one understands exactly what Google means by “thin content with little or no added value”.

    Google says if you get such a message, it means the search engine has detected “low-quality pages or shallow pages” on your site. This may include auto-generated content, doorway pages, content from other sources (scraped or low-quality guest blog post), or thin affiliate sites.

    This is in addition to the a recent algorithm update that went after doorway pages.

    “These techniques don’t provide users with substantially unique or valuable content, and are in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines,” Google says in a Webmaster help document. “As a result, Google has applied a manual spam action to the affected portions of your site. Actions that affect your whole site are listed under Site-wide matches. Actions that affect only part of your site and/or some incoming links to your site are listed under Partial matches.”

    Here’s a video of Google’s Matt Cutts talking about thin content with little or no added value.

    Google’s recommended actions for resolving your issues include reviewing the auto-generated content, affiliate program, scraped content, and doorway page guideline documentation. Then, check for content on your site that duplicates content from other sites, as well as for thin content pages with affiliate links and doorway pages/auto-generated content. Basically you’ll want to get rid of any of that.

    Google also points to its classic post-Panda launch blog post, which gives you a list of 23 questions to ask yourself about your site and content. These include:

    1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?

    2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?

    3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?

    4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?

    5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

    6. Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

    7. Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?

    8. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?

    9. How much quality control is done on content?

    10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?

    11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?

    12. Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?

    13. Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?

    14. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?

    15. Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?

    16. Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?

    17. Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?

    18. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?

    19. Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?

    20. Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

    21. Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

    22. Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?

    23. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

    It is interesting that Google has to dish out manual penalties for this stuff all this time after the Panda update launched. That combined with the fact that Panda has been MIA for so long really makes you wonder just how effective it really was.

    Anyhow, if you got a manual penalty and get your site to meet these guidelines, you can submit a reconsideration request and wait for a message in Webmaster Tools, which will let you know when Google has reviewed your site. The penalty will be lifted if Google determines that you’ve fixed the issues adequately.

    Have Google’s search results reflected a successful Panda algorithm in your opinion? Share your thoughts.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Google Panda Update MIA For About Six Months

    Google Panda Update MIA For About Six Months

    What happened to the Google Panda update? It seems to have gone missing for about six months after Google last officially confirmed a refresh in September. Those keeping track indicate that it hasn’t been updated or refreshed at all since October (the company had said it would be a slow rollout in the first place).

    “Based on user (and webmaster!) feedback, we’ve been able to discover a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content more precisely,” Google’s Pierre Far said announcing the September update. “This results in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher, which is nice.”

    Google has now kind of (vaguely) confirmed that there hasn’t been another update since October. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable asked Google’s John Mueller about this in a Webmaster Central hangout, and was told, “that’s possible ,yea.”

    Google transparency at its finest.

    Schwartz also points to another comment Mueller made during the hangout: “I think both of those algorithms [Panda and Penguin] currently are not updating the data regularly. So that is something for both of them, where we kind of have to push the updates as well.”

    Unfortunately, when Google takes so long to update an algorithm, sites can suffer from lost traffic if they were hit by it. If they make the necessary changes that counter what got them hit in the first place, they can potentially regain search visibility. Google has waited a very long time between Penguin updates in the past, which cost a lot of sites dearly. It has historically been more forgiving with Panda, updating it more regularly. Apparently that’s no longer the case.

    “5.5 months for a Panda refresh is way too long,” writes Schwartz. “Penguin, well we are use to that torture.”

    These sentiments are no doubt echoed by plenty of other webmasters.

    Further illustrating the problem is that Schwartz’s own site, Search Engine Roundtable, was apparently hit by Panda in September, and has yet to recover. Luckily for him, he already has a substantial following that will visit the site without needing Google to drive it there. That’s not necessarily the case for a lot of Panda victims.

    Search Engine Roundtable is hardly the type of site you’d expect Google’s Panda update to hurt. The guy is one of the most well-known voices in the SEO industry, and frequently puts out unique content that people are interested in reading.

    Schwartz did say back when his site was hit that he had sources telling him he wasn’t actually hit by Panda, but based on his other blog posts, he appears to believe that it was Panda. And let’s be honest. How many people do you know of are keeping a closer track on Google’s Panda algorithm than him?

    So if Panda is hurting sites that don’t deserve to be hurt by it, maybe Google shouldn’t wait so long to update it.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Site Takes Google Pounding, Reduces Staff

    Site Takes Google Pounding, Reduces Staff

    Google updates can have devastating effects on websites that depend on traffic from the search engine to thrive. It’s become clear over the years that it’s not wise to depend on Google or any other one source of traffic, because that source can go away in the blink of an eye, and then you’re stuck with some major problems. We’ve seen it happen time and time again, particularly since Google first launched the Panda update four years ago.

    Businesses have to find ways to Google proof (not to mention Facebook proof) their sites if they want to survive in the long run. Tell us and other readers about some steps you’ve taken to do so.

    It’s not only algorithm updates that can potentially impede the flow of traffic. As you know, Google has been providing more and more content directly on its search results pages, reducing the need for users to click over to third-party websites.

    As reported in December, Google seemingly killed a whole category of websites in one fell swoop when it started showing lyrics to songs in search results, preventing users from having to click through to lyrics sites to obtain the words they’re looking for. While Google doesn’t do this on every song lyric query, it does for many, and I’d assume the number will only grow.

    Not only is Google showing lyrics on the search results pages, on some of them, it’s only showing part of the lyrics, and putting a link to Google Play where users can click to see the rest on Google’s own site.

    Last month, it was no surprise to see that lyrics sites had in fact been drastically hurt in search visibility. SearchMetrics put out a list of the top “falling stars” of 2014 in terms of search visibility, and various lyrics sites made the list. LyricsMode and Sing365 each fell 60%. LyricsFreak dropped 59%. MetroLyrics dropped 12%. Last.fm, which links to MetroLyrics for song lyrics saw a decline of 18%. The star that fell the hardest, however (outside of a couple sites that registered big drops from redirects), was eLyrics.net, which saw a 92% drop. To recap, here’s the full list:

    Domain Loss in % Category
    guardian.co.uk -100 *Redirected
    mayoclinic.com -97 *Redirected
    elyrics.net -92 Enc/Dict/Lyrics
    patch.com -72 Web Portal
    lyricsmode.com -60 Enc/Dict/Lyrics
    sing365.com -60 Enc/Dict/Lyrics
    lyricsfreak.com -59 Enc/Dict/Lyrics
    tvtropes.org -59 News/Video
    discovery.com -59 News/Video
    starpulse.com -57 News/Video
    thefreedictionary.com -54 Enc/Dict/Lyrics
    topix.com -49 Social/Portal
    thesaurus.com -48 Enc/Dict/Lyrics
    nndb.com -45 Info
    netflix.com -45 News/Video
    myspace.com -40 Social/Portal
    aol.com -39 Internet/Computer/Tech
    flickr.com -39 Social/Portal
    chicagotribune.com -37 News/Video
    nbcnews.com -36 News/Video
    funnyordie.com -35 Social/Portal
    answers.com -35 Q&A/Expert
    examiner.com -35 News/Video
    alexa.com -34 Info
    simplyrecipes.com -32 Social/Portal
    tumblr.com -31 Social/Portal
    ask.com -30 Internet/Computer/Tech
    askmen.com -28 Blog
    indeed.com -27 Classif
    zap2it.com -27 News/Video
    zazzle.com -27 Retail
    expedia.com -27 Travel
    moviefone.com -26 News/Video
    blogspot.com -26 Blog
    foxnews.com -24 News/Video
    dailymotion.com -23 News/Video
    photobucket.com -23 Social/Portal
    toptenreviews.com -22 Price/Classif
    wikitravel.org -22 Travel
    food.com -21 Cooking
    msn.com -21 News/Video
    howstuffworks.com -21 Q&A/Expert
    mashable.com -21 Blog
    enchantedlearning.com -21 Q&A/Expert
    cbsnews.com -21 News/Video
    usatoday.com -20 News/Video
    latimes.com -20 News/Video
    nba.com -18 Info
    last.fm -18 Social/Portal
    rapgenius.com -17 *Redirected
    gethuman.com -16 Info
    crunchbase.com -16 Info
    nydailynews.com -15 News/Video
    nytimes.com -15 News/Video
    city-data.com -14 Adress
    cnn.com -13 News/Video
    huffingtonpost.com -13 News/Video
    nationalgeographic.com -12 News/Video
    whitepages.com -12 Adress
    metrolyrics.com -12 Enc/Dict/Lyrics
    medicalnewstoday.com -11 Med
    retailmenot.com -11 Price/Classif
    perezhilton.com -10 Blog

    eLyrics.net confirmed the drop as reported by SearchMetrics to WebProNews, calling it “unfortunately true.”

    Interestingly enough, the site does not attribute the drop in traffic specifically to Google showing lyrics on its search results pages, but rather to both Panda and Penguin.

    eLyrics says it has not seen any drop off from other search engines, and that they’re “pretty much the same”.

    Asked if the site will be able to survive without search traffic, eLyrics said, “I doubt that, but we are pushing hard to stay online.”

    Asked if it has other significant sources of traffic, the site says it has very little direct traffic and social shares. Still, it says it’s not going to change anything just because of Google’s changes, but will “try to operate as usual.”

    We’ve seen Google changes lead to websites shutting down and businesses laying off staff in the past. Asked if the site has any employees, and if the change will affect that, eLyrics said it has already decreased its number of staff.

    We reached out to other lyrics sites from SearchMetrics’ list, but eLyrics was the only one we received comment from. While I’m not at all surprised to hear that eLyrics was impacted by Panda and/or Penguin (it wouldn’t be the first time such a site was impacted), I am somewhat surprised to hear that Google’s addition of lyrics on search results pages hasn’t contributed. Perhaps that just came too late to matter.

    Either way, other site should use this as the latest example in the ongoing lesson about not depending solely on Google for visitors. Build your audience through other channels, and diversify your traffic as much as possible. You will never be guaranteed ongoing success through any single path.

    What advice would you give to a site like eLyrics? Share in the comments.

    Images via eLyrics, Google

  • Is This New Panda Update Helping Small Sites?

    If you’re feeling the effects of a Google algorithm update this week, there’s a good chance it’s Panda. No, Google hasn’t already launched another one. It’s still the last one. It’s just not done rolling out (at least as of Monday).

    Have you felt the effects of Google’s algorithm this week? Let us know in the comments.

    On September 25th, Google launched the update, which it suggested should help small sites. Google’s Pierre Far said on Google+:

    Earlier this week, we started a slow rollout of an improved Panda algorithm, and we expect to have everything done sometime next week. Based on user (and webmaster!) feedback, we’ve been able to discover a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content more precisely. This results in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher, which is nice. Depending on the locale, around 3-5% of queries are affected.

    Search Engine Land reported on Monday that the roll-out was still occurring, claiming to have confirmed as much with Google. That is indeed a “slow rollout,” and webmaster/SEOs are still feeling the effects.

    A new Penguin update is on the way as well, but we still don’t know exactly when that will hit. It could be as early this week, but will most likely happen before the end of the year at the latest.

    So, has the latest Panda update actually been helping smaller sites? Well, probably some, but others feel like they’re being left out in the cold, while others are just generally skeptical.

    “I still don’t see small businesses appearing in the search results,” one reader recently commented. “I suspect this new Panda is just more smoke and mirrors from Google…”

    Another said, “There is nothing favorable for small business in this update.”

    That was early in the roll-out, however, and if it’s still rolling out, who knows how long it will actually take.

    Searchmetrics put out its regular lists of winners and losers from the Panda update, which are as follows:

    Losers:

        Domain – Loser     Before     After   Change in %
    yellow.com  16383 3413 -79%
    similarsites.com  118771 25197 -79%
    free-coloring-pages.com  12268 2960 -76%
    dwyer-inst.com  13225 3229 -76%
    issitedownrightnow.com  69354 18376 -74%
    updatestar.com  13232 3788 -71%
    office365.com  29365 8781 -70%
    findthebest.com  30848 93937 -70%
    homewyse.com  14161 4410 -69%
    adelaide.edu.au  20351 6537 -68%
    pearltrees.com  16769 5503 -67%
    ok.co.uk  18226 5995 -67%
    socialcomments.org  27476 9058 -67%
    mybillcom.com  12258 4136 -66%
    tgiblackfriday.com  10037 3420 -66%
    discountsstory.net  20907 7337 -65%
    indyweek.com  13373 4826 -64%
    zabasearch.com  42679 15697 -63%
    exacttarget.com  14849 5729 -61%
    okc.gov  12547 4907 -61%
    no1reviews.com  18403 7235 -61%
    mademan.com  23006 9779 -57%
    studymode.com  10756 4611 -57%
    thefair.com  14067 6277 -55%
    appappeal.com  11265 5149 -54%
    chronicle.com  17244 8208 -52%
    lyricstranslations.com  16944 8077 -52%
    onhealth.com  118017 56735 -52%
    cherrybam.com  20178 9736 -52%
    nerve.com  17264 9016 -48%
    emedtv.com  30739 16266 -47%
    hubpages.com  30493 163548 -46%
    brothersoft.com  25357 13969 -45%
    collider.com  47733 26383 -45%
    337.com  21172 12141 -43%
    hypestat.com  18047 10553 -42%
    telecomfile.com  17652 10448 -41%
    discountednewspapers.com  19472 11624 -40%
    bugmenot.com  25339 15152 -40%
    medterms.com  286956 172836 -40%
    translationcloud.com  43295 2674 -38%
    archive.today  48603 30085 -38%
    game-oldies.com  47279 2932 -38%
    kxan.com  26622 16609 -38%
    thinkbabynames.com  22762 14246 -37%
    amtrakcalifornia.com  18965 1192 -37%
    theepochtimes.com  34385 21638 -37%
    addresses.com  33042 21012 -36%
    hrblock.com  24599 15775 -36%
    areacode.org  33412 21799 -35%
    buzzle.com  76279 50134 -34%
    militarycac.com  30014 1977 -34%
    howstuffworks.com  1251213 827093 -34%
    eprize.com  42565 28358 -33%
    travelandleisure.com  110818 74347 -33%
    webutations.info  190251 127762 -33%
    appbrain.com  59235 40254 -32%
    enjoygram.com  28335 19322 -32%
    dailypuppy.com  24775 1701 -31%
    oxforddictionaries.com  383172 265208 -31%
    offers.com  56036 39082 -30%
    guardianlv.com  34268 24045 -30%
    thinkexist.com  138435 97364 -30%
    hallmark.com  61087 4381 -28%
    ehow.com  101928 73157 -28%
    laws.com  26208 18839 -28%
    greenwichmeantime.com  45629 32906 -28%
    miamiherald.com  99912 72274 -28%
    dubbed-scene.com  26502 1926 -27%
    bobdylan.com  27307 19881 -27%
    cardhub.com  49508 36101 -27%
    mommysavesbig.com  46118 33913 -26%
    healthcentral.com  47799 35173 -26%
    appcrawlr.com  29088 21595 -26%

    Winners:

        Domain – Winner     Before     After   Change in %
    comdotgame.com  2632 38231 1353%
    hongkiat.com  135 68372 406%
    babble.com  8963 42916 379%
    rd.com  17209 71434 315%
    mediamass.net  6839 27876 308%
    hotelguides.com  8563 32957 285%
    yourtango.com  30624 109148 256%
    moreofit.com  6431 22864 256%
    celebrity-gossip.net  10727 38068 255%
    spoonful.com  2813 89573 218%
    ivillage.com  11818 37065 214%
    800-numbers.net  11809 34631 193%
    thepiratebay.se  2571 67457 162%
    aceshowbiz.com  21679 55059 154%
    dummies.com  42806 104764 145%
    geekwire.com  11606 28319 144%
    ispot.tv  12242 28062 129%
    womansday.com  11868 27195 129%
    bncollege.com  36738 76969 110%
    afterdawn.com  18519 38775 109%
    allwomenstalk.com  19836 41088 107%
    livescience.com  79499 164323 107%
    savings.com  25874 52886 104%
    fastcodesign.com  25303 50326 99%
    mystore411.com  24262 47482 96%
    health.com  120733 212827 76%
    unblocksit.es  23559 40897 74%
    newseum.org  36201 59205 64%
    netdoctor.co.uk  25973 41246 59%
    celebdirtylaundry.com  34511 53817 56%
    digitaltrends.com  137257 21076 54%
    quickanddirtytips.com  28288 43284 53%
    tvtropes.org  105715 160152 51%
    simplyrecipes.com  100684 149017 48%
    glamour.com  53907 77933 45%
    astrologyzone.com  45185 65237 44%
    chow.com  117933 168931 43%
    arstechnica.com  121742 171708 41%
    parenting.com  49936 70185 41%
    realsimple.com  180553 252922 40%
    webopedia.com  153512 213758 39%
    healthgrades.com  70386 97103 38%
    laptopmag.com  53221 73249 38%
    dispatch.com  44614 60412 35%
    dealcatcher.com  95757 128887 35%
    businessdictionary.com  104606 140213 34%
    vice.com  157693 208496 32%
    smithsonianmag.com  18069 238733 32%
    thefreedictionary.com  2124356 2774647 31%
    internetslang.com  50578 65093 29%

    These lists were also released early in the roll-out, so it’s likely that they’ve changed significantly by now. It’s also worth keeping in mind that these lists have in the past not always been a completely accurate view of sites affected by Panda, as other signals have come into play. It’s an interesting look some sites that have lost and gained search visibility in Google, but strictly speaking about Panda, the lists should be taken with a grain of salt.

    Notice that eHow – the content farm poster child, which has been a major victim of Panda over the years – is in the losers list yet again.

    While you’re dealing with the new Panda update and anticipating the next Penguin, keep in mind that Google is also bumping up HTTPS sites and is apparently adding mobile site usability as a ranking signal. Also, you might want to take another look at that list of Panda-related guidelines Google provided.

    What are your thoughts about the latest Panda so far? A step in the right direction? Let us know in the comments.

    Note: This article has been updated from a previous form to include additional information.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • New Google Panda Update Should Help Small Sites

    There’s officially a new Panda update rolling out. If you have a small or medium-sized site, Google is suggesting this could potentially help you, though we’ve heard that before.

    Are you seeing any effects from the new Panda update? Good or bad? Let us know in the comments.

    Google doesn’t typically announce or confirm Panda refreshes these days, but when there’s a major Panda update, they usually let the world know. On Thursday night, Google’s Pierre Far did just that via Google+ update.

    This is exactly what he said:

    Earlier this week, we started a slow rollout of an improved Panda algorithm, and we expect to have everything done sometime next week.

    Based on user (and webmaster!) feedback, we’ve been able to discover a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content more precisely. This results in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher, which is nice.

    Depending on the locale, around 3-5% of queries are affected.

    There was a significant Panda refresh suspected earlier this month, but the company didn’t confirm that.

    If you’re keeping track, this is the 27th Panda update. Unofficial algorithm namer and numberer Danny Sullivan is calling it 4.1.

    A lot of people are happy to read Far’s words about small and medium-sized businesses. In fact, one person in WebmasterWorld was actually more impressed with the “which is nice” part. If Google wants small and medium-sized sites to succeed, then how thoughtful of them!

    When Google pushed out Panda 4.0 in May, it was also supposed to benefit small sites and businesses. Google’s Matt Cutts had discussed the update at a conference a couple months prior, and said it should have a direct impact on helping these businesses do better.

    One Googler on his team was said to be specifically working on ways to help small web sites and businesses do better in Google search results. While there was certainly a mix of reactions, there did seem to be more people claiming a positive impact from that update than usual.

    As you might expect, the reactions are mixed once again with the new update.

    If you were hit by Panda in the past, you might see some positive effects with the new update if you made changes that the algorithm likes or even if the new signals pick up on something you have that the algorithm wasn’t picking up on before. Of course it goes both ways. You may have escaped past updates unscathed, and triggered one of the newer signals this time around.

    Now that the new and improved Panda is on the loose, let the speculation about additional signals begin. As a reminder, these are the questions Google listed a few years ago when talking about how it assesses quality in relation to the Panda update:

    Would you trust the information presented in this article?

    Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?

    Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?

    Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?

    Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

    Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

    Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?

    Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?

    How much quality control is done on content?

    Does the article describe both sides of a story?

    Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?

    Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?

    Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?

    For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?

    Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?

    Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?

    Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?

    Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?

    Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?

    Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

    Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

    Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?

    Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

    How (if at all) has Panda impacted your site? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • New Google Panda Update Refresh Suspected

    New Google Panda Update Refresh Suspected

    Google hasn’t confirmed that it rolled out a new Panda refresh, but signs point to one hitting on September 5th (Friday), according to Search Engine Roundtable and SEOs.

    Barry Schwartz points to a post in the Google Webmaster Help forum from a webmaster whose site was hit, and shares a response he received from Google, which is standard Panda advice:

    I’d recommend making sure your website has unique, compelling, and high-quality content of its own — not just content from other websites.

    He also points to a tweet from one SEO who says clients previously affected by Panda saw recoveries. Others in the comments on Schwartz’s post seem to support the notion that such an update occurred. One suggests it began in the middle of August, and another said they had multiple clients seeing recoveries on September 6th and 7th.

    Google doesn’t really announce or confirm Panda updates/refreshes like it used to, as they happen much more frequently these days. Earlier this summer, they did confirm a major update, but typically, they’re not going to be so noteworthy.

    As usual, the guidance is to create high quality content.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Panda Update Leads To Death Of Yahoo Product

    As you probably know, Google’s Panda update originally targeted content farm sites. Demand Media’s eHow was the poster child, but back in the early Panda days, Yahoo also had such a content network called Associated Content.

    After Panda, it deleted 75,000 articles, following in the footsteps of Demand Media’s recovery strategy. It also changed Associated Content to Yahoo Voices as the “official digital library” of the Yahoo Contributor Network.

    Now, Yahoo is just killing off the whole thing.

    The whole concept was part of Yahoo’s strategy while CEO Marissa Mayer was still working at Google. While she may not have dealed with it directly, she has now presumably seen the situation from both points of view, and this is the decision she has made.

    The announcement came as part of a round of “spring cleaning” along with news of the company shutting down eight other products.

    Yahoo will close Voices on July 31st and the Contributor site at the end of August. They’ve already been sending emails out to contributors alerting them of the news. For contributors, the assignments have already been few and far between, so the news probably won’t come as too big a shock to most.

    Yahoo says it is focusing its energy on its four core areas: search, communications, digital magazines, and video, as well as Flickr and Tumblr.

    Fortunately for Yahoo, unlike many other Panda victims, it doesn’t rely on its Pandalized content to pay the bills. There were no mentions of layoffs in the announcement.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Facebook Says Your Organic Reach Would Be Worse If It Showed Everything In The News Feed

    Facebook’s Brian Boland wrote a lengthy blog post about the much talked about decline in organic reach of Facebook Page posts. It’s happening for two main reasons, he said: more and more content is created and shared every day and News Feed is designed to show users content that’s most relevant to them.

    It’s not about money, according to Facebook. Do you buy that? Let us know in the comments.

    “To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person,” he wrote. “Over the past year, we’ve made some key changes to improve how News Feed chooses content: We’ve gotten better at showing high-quality content, and we’ve cleaned up News Feed spam. As a result of these changes, News Feed is becoming more engaging, even as the amount of content being shared on Facebook continues to grow.”

    According to at least one third-party measurement, Facebook is indeed sending more and more referrals to websites that are actually appearing in the News Feed.

    Some question why Facebook doesn’t just show people everything from all of their friends and all of the Pages they’ve liked, and let them decide what they want to see.

    “Several other online feed platforms display all content in real time,” he said. “But the real-time approach has limitations. People only have so much time to consume stories, and people often miss content that isn’t toward the top when they log on. This means they often do not see the content that’s most valuable to them.”

    He reiterated a point Facebook has made in the past, that in tests, the ranking system offers people a “more engaging experience”. He also said that using a real-time system for content would “actually cause Pages’ organic reach to decrease further.”

    I’m guessing some could argue with that, especially considering all the research that’s been done about the best times to post content. There is pretty much a whole industry dedicated to maximizing visibility on social media and helping businesses get more out of their social media strategies.

    Obviously many consider the decline of organic reach a money grab on Facebook’s part. There is a fairly widespread mentality that Facebook has dropped it to force people to pay for promoted posts.

    This is false, according to Boland, who said, “Our goal is always to provide the best experience for the people that use Facebook. We believe that delivering the best experiences for people also benefits the businesses that use Facebook. If people are more active and engaged with stories that appear in News Feed, they are also more likely to be active and engaged with content from businesses.”

    He then compared Facebook organic reach to SEO:

    Many large marketing platforms have seen declines in organic reach. Online search engines, for instance, provided a great deal of free traffic to businesses and websites when they initially launched. People and businesses flocked to these platforms, and as the services grew there was more competition to rank highly in search results. Because the search engines had to work much harder to surface the most relevant and useful content, businesses eventually saw diminished organic reach.

    Indeed, Facebook News Feed algorithm changes have been compared to Google’s famous Panda update. The comparison only stretches so far, however, because Google has over 200 signals that it takes into account in ranking content. Facebook, while it has many ranking signals, isn’t looking much beyond source in determining quality, which is problematic. At least Google gave sites a big list of things it thinks about when determining quality.

    Boland then talked about how transparent Facebook is:

    While many platforms experience a change in organic reach, some are more transparent about these changes than others. Facebook has always valued clear, detailed, actionable reports that help businesses see what’s happening with their content. And over time we will continue to expand and improve our already strong reporting tools.

    To be fair, Google might give more hints about what it considers to be quality content, but its transparency is constantly on trial in the court of public opinion. Boland at least described “great content” in his post as “content that teaches people something, entertains them, makes them think, or in some other way adds value to their lives.” The problem is that based on what Facebook has said before, it doesn’t really matter if your content does any of this if you’re not a whitelisted site. That is when it comes to Page posts. The “great content” thing can still work, of course, in terms of people just liking content from your actual site after they get to it from a search engine, Twitter or anywhere else.

    After the near-demise of organic reach on Facebook, many wonder what the point of trying to acquire new Facebook fans is. Boland attempted to answer this next, saying, “Fans absolutely have value,” first and foremost, “Fans make your ads more effective.”

    “When an ad has social context — in other words, when a person sees their friend likes your business — your ads drive, on average, 50% more recall and 35% higher online sales lift,” he wrote. “Fans also make the ads you run on Facebook more efficient in our ads auction. Ads with social context are a signal of positive quality of the ad, and lead to better auction prices. You can use insights about your fans — like where they live, and their likes and interests — to inform decisions about reaching your current and prospective customers.”

    Finally, fans can give your business credibility, he said.

    Later, he compared Facebook to search again:

    Like TV, search, newspapers, radio and virtually every other marketing platform, Facebook is far more effective when businesses use paid media to help meet their goals. Your business won’t always appear on the first page of a search result unless you’re paying to be part of that space. Similarly, paid media on Facebook allows businesses to reach broader audiences more predictably, and with much greater accuracy than organic content.

    Next, Boland said that “of course” businesses can succeed on Facebook with decreased organic reach before running down a handful of brands that have used ads successfully.

    The early reaction to Boland’s post (in the comments) has been mixed. Some appreciated the explanation, but others still fee like it’s a “money grab” on Facebook’s part, and are no less frustrated than they were before the post.

    Do you believe the money isn’t factoring into Facebook’s organic reach decline? Share your thoughts.

    Image via Facebook

  • Press Release Sites Take A Hit In Google’s Rankings

    It would appear that some big name press release distribution sites have taken a hit in Google.

    Sean Malseed at Seer Interactive pointed out that PRWeb lost over half of its traffic, and dropped out of the first 20 Google results for over 8,000 keywords, based on data from SEMrush.

    “It looks like there’s guilt by association, as well,” writes Malseed. “Bloomberg, who partners with the press release agencies to disseminate releases, also took a huge hit.”

    Barry Schwartz took things a step further and looked at Searchmetrics data for PR Newswire, PRWeb, BusinessWire, and PRLog, each of which took hits after the Google released Panda 4.0. It’s unclear whether this was an effect of that Panda update or something else Google did.

    Last summer, Google updated its guidelines for what it considers link schemes. This included, “Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.”

    In a Webmaster hangout, Google’s John Mueller said Google wants all links in press releases to be nofollowed, and press releases should be treated like advertisements. He indicated that SEOs were using press releases more for search purposes.

    The press release distributors have not been shy about promoting SEO value either.

    A couple years ago, BusinessWire launched an SEO-enhanced platform after patenting its SEO strategy. Google is literally running an ad from PRWeb (pictured at the top) for press release SEO right now.

    Images via PRWeb, Google

  • Is Google’s Panda Update Helping Small Businesses?

    Early last week, Google pushed out a couple of big algorithm updates: a new version of the so-called “Payday Loans” update and a new generation of the famous/infamous Panda update. Google has been talking up the latter for a while, saying that it would benefit smaller sites and businesses, and be gentler overall. Has it lived up to this promise?

    Are you a small business affected by Google’s Panda update? How has it impacted your site? Let us know in the comments.

    Google’s Matt Cutts spoke at the Search Marketing Expo in March, saying that Google was working on the “next generation” of Panda, which would be softer and more friendly to small sites and businesses. Barry Scwhartz, who was in attendance recapped what he said:

    Cutts explained that this new Panda update should have a direct impact on helping small businesses do better.

    One Googler on his team is specifically working on ways to help small web sites and businesses do better in the Google search results. This next generation update to Panda is one specific algorithmic change that should have a positive impact on the smaller businesses.

    Interestingly, we do seem to be seeing more people claiming they’ve done well with the latest Panda update compared to past updates. If it’s really helping sites this much, that bodes well for the future, because it looks like whatever Google has done with Panda will be carried forward for the foreseeable future.

    PerformanceIN says it’s helping smaller affiliate sites. Sylvia Nankivell writes:

    In the past, Google’s updates may have felt somewhat unjust to some smaller affiliate sites, and there has been much talk of the magical protection of the big brand. I have heard complaints from affiliates with pages of in-depth, rich content, losing out to big brands with a page containing only a short sentence on it.

    Perhaps this new Panda 4.0 update is in response to these sorts of complaints. It seems that now, big name brands, as well as the smaller businesses, need to consider how information rich all of their pages and directories are. If they don’t, then they are in danger of joining the Panda 4 ‘losers list’.

    We haven’t heard about any planned layoffs from the latest update yet, which is a good sign (though we recently heard about layoffs from an update that took place over a year and a half ago).

    Some sites seem to be making recoveries with Panda 4.0 after being hit by previous Panda updates.

    One of our readers commented this week, “My site was hit by the first ever Panda update and only just recovered from last week’s update. So this weaker Panda is confusing..is my content weak but you’re letting me off or was the algo wrong on the first place?”

    In case you missed it, SearchMetrics recently put out is obligatory Panda winners and losers lists for 4.0. These things are never a hundred percent accurate, but they do give you an idea of some sites that saw significant movement when the update was rolled out. eBay was among the top losers, but that ended up being a manual penalty rather than Panda, apparently.

    Named winners include Glassdoor.com, emediinehealth.com, medterms.com, yourdictionary.com, shopstyle.com, zimbio.com, myrecipes.com, couponcabin.com, buzzfeed.com, consumeraffairs.com, wordpress.com, thinkexist.com, onhealth.com, alternativeto.net, whosdatedwho.com, reverso.net, wikimedia.org, dogtime.com, findthebest.com, eatingwell.com, quotegarden.com, goodhousekeeping.com, everydayhealth.com, simplyhired.com, momswhothink.com, similarsites.com, southernliving.com, theknot.com, allaboutvision.com, openculture.com, babyzone.com, tasteofhome.com, gotquestions.org, movie4k.to, wmagazine.com, ycharts.com, historyplace.com, rcn.com, salary.com, skpdic.com, mediawiki.org, oodle.com, abbreviations.com, homes.com, spokeo.com, hlntv.com, sparkpeople.com, hayneedle.com, and emedtv.com.

    It’s a pretty interesting range of types of sites. It’s good to know that BuzzFeed has won not only the Facebook Panda update but also the Google Panda update.

    Search Engine Roundtable recently ran a poll asking how Panda 4.0 impacted readers’ sites. Over 1,200 people responded. Over 15% said they had recovered from a previous Panda penalty. Over 19% said their rankings increased, but that they were never hurt by Panda. Over 23% said their rankings remained the same, but they were never previously hurt by Panda. Nearly 27% said they were never previously hurt by Panda, but saw their rankings decrease this time. About 11% said they didn’t recover from a previous Panda penalty.

    The poll doesn’t take into account business size, but it’s probably safe to assume that a good amount of those who participated are from or represent small businesses.

    Do you think Panda 4.0 is good for small sites? Let us know in the comments.

    Image via YouTube

  • Google’s eBay Hit Was Apparently Manual

    Google’s eBay Hit Was Apparently Manual

    As reported last week, eBay appeared alongside the biggest apparent losers from Google’s most recent Panda update, which is supposed to be softer than past updates, and make things a little better for smaller sites and businesses. According to reports, it turns out eBay was hit by a manual penalty rather than Panda.

    Just after the update was announced, Moz spotted eBay’s loss of search rankings for numerous keywords and phrases. The main eBay subdomain fell out of Moz’s “Big 10,” which is its metric of the ten domains with the most real estate in the top 10 search results.

    “Over the course of about three days, eBay fell from #6 in our Big 10 to #25,” wrote Dr. Peter J. Meyers at Moz. “Change is the norm for Google’s SERPs, but this particular change is clearly out of place, historically speaking. eBay has been #6 in our Big 10 since March 1st, and prior to that primarily competed with Twitter.com for either the #6 or #7 place. The drop to #25 is very large. Overall, eBay has gone from right at 1% of the URLs in our data set down to 0.28%, dropping more than two-thirds of the ranking real-estate they previously held.”

    He went on to highlight specific key phrases where eBay lost rankings. It lost two top ten rankings for three separate phrases: “fiber optic christmas tree,” “tongue rings,” and “vermont castings”. Each of these, according to Meyers, was a category page on eBay.

    eBay also fell out of the top ten, according to the report, for queries like “beats by dr dre,” “honeywell thermostat,” “hooked on phonics,” “batman costume,” “lenovo tablet,” “george foreman grill,” and many others.

    Then Searchmetrics put out its regular lists of winners and losers from the Panda update, and eBay was in the top 2 for losers.

    Late on Friday, however, just as much of the U.S. was transitioning into a three-day weekend, reports emerged that eBay was actually hit by a manual penalty rather than Panda. Jason Del Rey at Re/code wrote:

    As it turns out, Google did in fact penalize eBay and knock a whole bunch of its pages off Google’s search results, but it wasn’t part of Panda, according to a person familiar with the situation. Rather, it was part of a so-called “manual action” that Google took against eBay early this week; the pages weren’t removed as part of the Panda rollout, which affects entire sites and not individual pages.

    Neither company would comment.

    Del Ray points to a blog post at RefuGeeks, which shows that pages affected were category pages that users are unlikely to get to navigating the site, and were designed specifically for search engines, which is precisely the kind of thing that will get you penalized by Google.

    And that appears to be what happened. It looks like eBay has been removing the pages. A specific URL the post points to is no longer returning a page.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google: Panda 4.0 Brings in ‘Softer Side,’ Lays Groundwork For Future

    Back in March, Google’s Matt Cutts spoke at the Search Marketing Expo, and said that Google was working on the next generation of the Panda update, which he said would be softer and more friendly to small sites and businesses.

    Last week, Google pushed Panda 4.0, which Cutts reiterated is a bit softer than previous versions, and also said will “lay the groundwork” for future iterations.

    Barry Schwartz at SMX sister site Search Engine Land, who was in attendance at the session in which Cutts spoke about the update, gave a recap of his words at the time:

    Cutts explained that this new Panda update should have a direct impact on helping small businesses do better.

    One Googler on his team is specifically working on ways to help small web sites and businesses do better in the Google search results. This next generation update to Panda is one specific algorithmic change that should have a positive impact on the smaller businesses.

    It’s interesting that Google even announced the update at all, as it had pretty much stopped letting people know when new Panda refreshes were launched. The world is apparently not bored enough with Panda updates for Google to stop announcing them entirely.

    Here’s a look at Searchmetrics’ attempt to identify the top winners and losers of Panda 4.0.

    Image via YouTube