4 ms·

It's pretty interesting to see just how drastically Panda affected some very large sites. Most of the sites shown are the kind of sites that Panda was designed

by WillyF 15y ago

It's pretty interesting to see just how drastically Panda affected some very large sites. Most of the sites shown are the kind of sites that Panda was designed to deemphasize in the search results. It's what Google got right with Panda. What it doesn't seem to show is what Google got wrong with Panda. One of my sites lost 30% traffic on the day Panda went live, and it hasn't recovered. It's an extremely high quality site that I've put my life into for the past 4 years. I've tried a number of different things to recover, but so far I've had no success. My strong hunch is that it's a duplicate content issue, but I can't be sure. I've tried using rel="canonical" and reindexing parts of my site to no avail Google hasn't offered anything to help. I've been through their guidance on building high quality sites: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guid... It doesn't really help when you already have a high quality site and still are penalized. I'm pretty confident that Panda improved the overall quality of Google's SERPs, but they definitely made some mistakes. It sucks when you've lost thousands of dollars in revenue because you're one of the mistakes.

starwed 15y ago
Your anecdote isn't, by itself, even a single datapoint against Panda -- traffic might have been reduced because searchers have ended up at a site more useful to them!
WalterGR 15y ago
My story is almost exactly the same. The only difference is that my site was hit not by the original Panda update, but by the April 11 update ("Panda 2.0".) There was definitely collateral damage. Unfortunately for owners of such sites, since Panda did penalize several huge sites that people hate very much, it's viewed as an overwhelming success. Small site owners are burning the midnight oil, posting to the "official" Google Panda thread, and getting no feedback from Google.
- antimarketing 15y ago
  Google has given precise and clear signals of what to do with other releases from other teams, the Google Panda team is not directly responsible for rankings. The information is purposefully fragmented among the different releses, blogs etc.. of different teams. Because that is the way Google is structured, works and also because they want to avoid giving stupid people too much power by providing an easy "how-to" guide to rankings. You need to be a pro. marketer and know a bit about programming to keep up with Google's recommendations. I have done this, I simply do not want to share this information here where marketers read and make thousands or millions off it, but I would be glad to share that information with small site owners privately for free, one on one. No marketing orgies allowed! :) Simply stated, if you would for the next month study everything that Google has released the last couple of years (80+ hour work wweks) you would realize where they are going in the next couple of years not only theoritically, which is very useful, but also with practical steps in how to become a friend of Google. The reason that Google does not produce a even more straightforward guide to SERP / SEO field than they do right now (to lazy to link to it, because it is not that important right now) is that most marketing people are dumb and simply want to build an automatic system that generates money for them without hiring someone or fixing stuff themselves. I think they, meaning Google, consciously want to keep the human element alive and active in search engine marketing right now, therefore you saw Panda, you saw Google+ and you will see a lot of other things down the road as well. You have to understand that Google sees itself as educating, if not enlightening marketers with their activites as well. It might surprise you, but most marketers are ignorant of how their field really works. Having attended tons of seminars and a few conferences to boot, they can not even grasp simple technological innovations like HTML5 Video, even if it is explained to them nice and clearly many, many times. So from Google's stand point, they want to make this learninge xperience slow, step by step, and like a puzzle for a child. (I am leaving out all the criticism of Google that I have and portraying it in a neutral light for now)
  - WalterGR 15y ago
    I would be glad to share that information with small site owners privately for free, one on one. Panda hit my site almost 5 months ago. Though I've made lots of changes, I'm not seeing any recovery. So clearly I'm doing something wrong. As a small site owner, I'd be ecstatic to receive any advice you can share. My email address is waltergr@aol.com.
antimarketing 15y ago
I can help you out, I am a pro. web marketing guy with experience in highly competitive fields. Just tell me if you want help with a reply to this message. By the way, I really love the Panda update since the way I do marketing is 100% legit and head of the curve of the trajectory of what Google will be using in two years time.
- WillyF 15y ago
  I'll take any help I can get. It's been half a year with no progress. My site is in my profile, and there's a link to my e-mail on the right hand sidebar of my site under my picture.

by WillyF 15y ago

starwed 15y ago

Your anecdote isn't, by itself, even a single datapoint against Panda -- traffic might have been reduced because searchers have ended up at a site more useful to them!

WalterGR 15y ago

My story is almost exactly the same. The only difference is that my site was hit not by the original Panda update, but by the April 11 update ("Panda 2.0".) There was definitely collateral damage. Unfortunately for owners of such sites, since Panda did penalize several huge sites that people hate very much, it's viewed as an overwhelming success. Small site owners are burning the midnight oil, posting to the "official" Google Panda thread, and getting no feedback from Google.

antimarketing 15y ago
Google has given precise and clear signals of what to do with other releases from other teams, the Google Panda team is not directly responsible for rankings. The information is purposefully fragmented among the different releses, blogs etc.. of different teams. Because that is the way Google is structured, works and also because they want to avoid giving stupid people too much power by providing an easy "how-to" guide to rankings. You need to be a pro. marketer and know a bit about programming to keep up with Google's recommendations. I have done this, I simply do not want to share this information here where marketers read and make thousands or millions off it, but I would be glad to share that information with small site owners privately for free, one on one. No marketing orgies allowed! :) Simply stated, if you would for the next month study everything that Google has released the last couple of years (80+ hour work wweks) you would realize where they are going in the next couple of years not only theoritically, which is very useful, but also with practical steps in how to become a friend of Google. The reason that Google does not produce a even more straightforward guide to SERP / SEO field than they do right now (to lazy to link to it, because it is not that important right now) is that most marketing people are dumb and simply want to build an automatic system that generates money for them without hiring someone or fixing stuff themselves. I think they, meaning Google, consciously want to keep the human element alive and active in search engine marketing right now, therefore you saw Panda, you saw Google+ and you will see a lot of other things down the road as well. You have to understand that Google sees itself as educating, if not enlightening marketers with their activites as well. It might surprise you, but most marketers are ignorant of how their field really works. Having attended tons of seminars and a few conferences to boot, they can not even grasp simple technological innovations like HTML5 Video, even if it is explained to them nice and clearly many, many times. So from Google's stand point, they want to make this learninge xperience slow, step by step, and like a puzzle for a child. (I am leaving out all the criticism of Google that I have and portraying it in a neutral light for now)
- WalterGR 15y ago
  I would be glad to share that information with small site owners privately for free, one on one. Panda hit my site almost 5 months ago. Though I've made lots of changes, I'm not seeing any recovery. So clearly I'm doing something wrong. As a small site owner, I'd be ecstatic to receive any advice you can share. My email address is waltergr@aol.com.

antimarketing 15y ago

I can help you out, I am a pro. web marketing guy with experience in highly competitive fields. Just tell me if you want help with a reply to this message. By the way, I really love the Panda update since the way I do marketing is 100% legit and head of the curve of the trajectory of what Google will be using in two years time.

WillyF 15y ago
I'll take any help I can get. It's been half a year with no progress. My site is in my profile, and there's a link to my e-mail on the right hand sidebar of my site under my picture.