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Panda has taught me a lot. Just before it hit, I had a small site that was on the rise in terms of traffic. A hobbyist site, no ads, all original content, and

by fleddr 4y ago

Panda has taught me a lot. Just before it hit, I had a small site that was on the rise in terms of traffic. A hobbyist site, no ads, all original content, and very much not "thin". An enthusiast site, much like the original internet. Incoming links were organic and spontaneous, from serious sites. Panda crushed it. Massive pagerank downgrade and traffic decimated to about 5%. In mere hours. A false positive, I suppose. I spent 3 months trying to figure out the reason but nobody, including Google or SEO specialists were able to provide any tangible answer. That day etched a few important lessons into my long term memory: 1) The size of Google's power. It effectively has the power to decide whether you digitally exist or not. The ultimate traffic controller. 2) Even a good faith move by Google may have 1% of false positives. Which seems totally rational until you realize that at Google's scale this could mean millions of people being totally fucked out of the blue. 3) Worse, when that happens, there's no accountability. You can't go anywhere for help, undo being a false positive, you're just randomly fucked and that's it. You cannot depend on anything ran by Google. Although I'm fine and it wasn't exactly a pivotal moment in my life, it radically changed my view on Google. Early on, I was a fanboy. Google kicking lame Microsoft's butt with miraculous products like search, maps, gmail. I was cheering them on. As of my "lesson", I've grown increasingly cynical. That was 10 years ago. They've become infinitely worse.

unity1001 4y ago
> Panda crushed it. Massive pagerank downgrade and traffic decimated to about 5% Yep. I also had various such legitimate sites. They all sank to oblivion. Worse, I had a small web development outfit - we used to put a link back to our site at the footers of the websites of our clients, like 'Designed by', or 'Developed by' etc. As then-advised by Google as good practice. All of our clients' websites sunk. Small businesses, small ecommerce sites, blogs, open source project sites. All of them became 'low quality'. Not only their livelihood was sunk by Panda, but also our, the developers' websites were sunk because those sites were linked to us per what Google advised. We lost incoming business. Independent web development, small businesses, blogs etc that were thriving before Google murdered them were forced to use the centralized marketplaces - elance, upwork, amazon etc. Causing the consolidation of the internet and the rise of the algorithm. Its amazing how no class action lawsuit ensued over that. Google literally backstabbing its own users who adhered to the best practices it advocated, and killing their businesses and livelihoods to amplify shopping searches for Amazon and other corporate brands. > nobody, including Google or SEO specialists were able to provide any tangible answer. It was because of 'low quality links' that were pointing to websites. Ie, small sites linking to your site. I remember clients fervently going through all the other websites that they asked to link back to them, and begging them to take off those links so their rankings would improve. Some of them succeeded and rose some in ranking, but nothing near enough to keep their small shops alive, leave aside near anything before Panda. > 3) Worse, when that happens, there's no accountability. Yep. One sociopathic old-school corporate exec and a host of totally disconnected corporate executives decided the fate and livelihoods of tens of millions of people directly. Maybe up to hundreds of millions of people if you counted in the business ecosystem that those small businesses supported. Literal feudalism, albeit exercised through private tyrannies without any accountability. That made me conclude that any corporation that holds the livelihoods of people in its hands has to be tightly regulated by the the democratically elected governments. > it wasn't exactly a pivotal moment in my life It was a pivotal moment in the lives of countless people and their families. They lost their businesses, their livelihoods. Even worse, the Internet los the thriving grassroots businesses, communities and creative ecosystem that it had. It may be regaining it with the rise of the creator economy, but that will take time. Nothing can make up for the harm that Google did to the Internet and actual people's livelihoods.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Thanks for writing that and showing examples with a much more serious impact. It's hard to read. You make a great point that as of then, the great centralization of the internet began. It's only heads and the tail is cut off. Social media accelerated it even further. This is why 90% of the internet feels dead.

by fleddr 4y ago

unity1001 4y ago

> Panda crushed it. Massive pagerank downgrade and traffic decimated to about 5% Yep. I also had various such legitimate sites. They all sank to oblivion. Worse, I had a small web development outfit - we used to put a link back to our site at the footers of the websites of our clients, like 'Designed by', or 'Developed by' etc. As then-advised by Google as good practice. All of our clients' websites sunk. Small businesses, small ecommerce sites, blogs, open source project sites. All of them became 'low quality'. Not only their livelihood was sunk by Panda, but also our, the developers' websites were sunk because those sites were linked to us per what Google advised. We lost incoming business. Independent web development, small businesses, blogs etc that were thriving before Google murdered them were forced to use the centralized marketplaces - elance, upwork, amazon etc. Causing the consolidation of the internet and the rise of the algorithm. Its amazing how no class action lawsuit ensued over that. Google literally backstabbing its own users who adhered to the best practices it advocated, and killing their businesses and livelihoods to amplify shopping searches for Amazon and other corporate brands. > nobody, including Google or SEO specialists were able to provide any tangible answer. It was because of 'low quality links' that were pointing to websites. Ie, small sites linking to your site. I remember clients fervently going through all the other websites that they asked to link back to them, and begging them to take off those links so their rankings would improve. Some of them succeeded and rose some in ranking, but nothing near enough to keep their small shops alive, leave aside near anything before Panda. > 3) Worse, when that happens, there's no accountability. Yep. One sociopathic old-school corporate exec and a host of totally disconnected corporate executives decided the fate and livelihoods of tens of millions of people directly. Maybe up to hundreds of millions of people if you counted in the business ecosystem that those small businesses supported. Literal feudalism, albeit exercised through private tyrannies without any accountability. That made me conclude that any corporation that holds the livelihoods of people in its hands has to be tightly regulated by the the democratically elected governments. > it wasn't exactly a pivotal moment in my life It was a pivotal moment in the lives of countless people and their families. They lost their businesses, their livelihoods. Even worse, the Internet los the thriving grassroots businesses, communities and creative ecosystem that it had. It may be regaining it with the rise of the creator economy, but that will take time. Nothing can make up for the harm that Google did to the Internet and actual people's livelihoods.

fleddr 4y ago
Thanks for writing that and showing examples with a much more serious impact. It's hard to read. You make a great point that as of then, the great centralization of the internet began. It's only heads and the tail is cut off. Social media accelerated it even further. This is why 90% of the internet feels dead.