"Panda" has become kind of a dirty word among SEOs. Tweet about a trip to the zoo or a cuddly stuffed animal, and you're bound to get a tweet back saying, "Ugh, don't say panda, I'm still traumatized." My response to this reaction is twofold:
Reaction 1: Whatever, you guys. I still love pandas.
I mean, look at this guy:
Reaction 2: Whatever, you guys. I love Google Panda.
The hell you say?
Yes, that's right. I'm kind of a fan of Google Panda. Why? Because in addition to being an SEO, I'm also a Google user. I use Google multiple times every single day; everything from topics I'm researching for work, to the menu of the place I'm going for dinner (WHY PDF WHY?), to a variety of queries that start with "can dogs eat." And back in 2010, Google started to suck.
An embarrassing anecdote
During the 2010 holiday season, I went out and got myself my very own, non-plastic, real live Christmas tree for the first time. Unbeknownst to me, that tree came with a very special Christmas gift just for me: fleas. My apartment got fleas like your great-aunt's cat Mr. Mittens. It was bad, people. And it being the holiday season, I was pretty strapped for cash. What I wanted was a way to get rid of the little bastards myself, without calling an exterminator or spraying my apartment with poison. So what did I do? I turned to Google.
Here's what I found: pages and pages of articles titled "How to Get Rid of Fleas" that were all meaningless, thin-content paragraphs riddled with links to exterminator services. Not just one or two, but multiple searches resulted in a SERP full of this garbage. It was only after a fair amount of digging that I was able to find the solution (vacuum alllllll of the things really thoroughly, seal your clothes/bedding in a plastic bag for a day or two and then wash them in super-hot water) I was looking for.
Lately, I've been speaking to some college classes on SEO and when I start to talk about Panda, I ask if they remember a time when it seemed like every search they did turned up shallow, worthless results that seemed to talk about what they wanted, but didn't actually provide any answers. And you know what? They all remember, and they all agree that SERPs have improved significantly since then.
The Panda update was an upsetting, stressful time for SEOs and business owners alike. It was far from perfect; a lot of perfectly good content got knocked out with the bad, and a lot of innocent (i.e. non-black-hat) websites were affected. But it ultimately did make a lot of SERPs better, returning more trustworthy information that is more relevant to the query.
Take a look at the SERP for "How to Get Rid of Fleas" today. It still has a ton of results from sites like eHow and Instructables, which are sites that we might typically associate with having been hit by Panda. The difference is that now, those pages actually contain information on how to get rid of fleas. Additionally, there are results from highly reputable sources like the ASPCA, adding a measure of trust.
Panda was intended to make sure that when people Google something they can actually find it. On that measure, I'd say it succeeded more than it failed.
Bad panda
"But Ruth," I hear you say. "You should know as well as anybody that innocent businesses were affected by Panda. People lost a lot of business."
I know, and I kind of blame Google for that. They told us that the best way to rank was to have content on every page. No matter how many times they told us "create content for users, not search engines," by also telling us to have content on all the pages, they were effectively saying "create content for search engines." Small businesses often don't have the resources to create the kind of consistent, deep, relevant content that Google really wants. I can see why creating a bunch of keyword-rich but otherwise meaningless content might have seemed like the next best thing. I can only imagine how frustrating and scary it was for businesses to have their pages wiped from the SERPs in Panda's wake, and I KNOW how frustrating it was for SEOs to try to help those once-burned, twice-shy businesses get back into Google's good graces.
How Google makes money
Google makes money because Google has gigantic market share. They can charge advertisers more because they have the biggest pool of potential ad impressions and clicks to sell. This means Google has a complete interest in ensuring that when people search for things, they find exactly what they're looking for. That's it. Google does not care whether or not they foster small or local business growth in the U.S. and abroad. They only care about serving up the most relevant results they can to as many people as they can, so everyone keeps using Google.
Like I said, Panda wasn't perfect, but it did make a big difference in SERP relevance to a lot of queries. The other side of Google's gigantic market share, however, is that many businesses need some kind of presence on Google to succeed. We owe it to our clients - nay, we owe it to the Internet itself - to help them actually create relevant resources for users who search on their keywords. In addition to pleasing Google, you may convince some of those people to buy something.
It also means that we should make sure our clients invest in diverse sources of traffic. If a site has more than 50% of its traffic coming from Google, that leaves you pretty vulnerable to changes in Google's algorithm.
Finally, it's more important than ever to help businesses of all sizes - even those who can't afford SEO - market themselves online, the right way. I'm so excited that SEOmoz is working with GetListed now. I'm hoping that with increased access to resources to market themselves online, small and local businesses can start knocking content farms out of the SERPs. I'm also hoping that future updates like Panda - designed to keep quality in the SERPs - will be less dangerous to small and local businesses, because they'll know more about what to do and what not to do.
I'm also hoping we can go back to thinking "D'AWWWWWW" instead of "D'OH!" when we see a cuddly guy like this one:
Love pandas! Yes, Google was sucking big time. Spammy non relevant sites filled up the first pages. Anyone with $5 and a Fiverr account could get to first place on any keyword. So yes, panda was good for the internet in general. The lesson here is to stop trying to take shortcuts, and instead do (and help others do) quality SEO. Nice one Ruth. Keep them coming!
Fantastic piece Ruth!
I completely agree with you, I've seen SERPs improve dramatically and I feel that the sites affected by Panda (even non-black-hat sites) have vastly improved as a result. SEO seems to be in a really good place right now.
Also, who could resist those little panda faces?
I Agree with you. Due to these updates a lot of site owners are improving their content quality and removing thin and useless content.
3 years ago I bought a web site for what for me was big money. It was high ranking PR3 and was well back linked etc etc. No real SEO had been done on the site since I purchased it because I was told it was built in an old style and until it was upgraded it was not worth doing. Well in March this year I had the site completely upgraded to conform with all industry standards for an ECommerce site. The day the new site went live the traffic dropped by 90% every thing had been done correctly 301 directs everything. I was told to wait and it would all come back. Well 5 months down the line nothing has changed in fact on Oct 17th all the keywords completely disappeared. Now an SEO company has told me that the problem all along has been "Bad Back Links" and spammy anchor text some of which are over 5-10 years old and I have now been told that it is going to cost me a vast amount of money(which I do not have) to remove these bad back links that when I bought the site were not "Bad" links. I have contacted Google who have told me that I have not had a manual penalty it seems that I have just been hit by Algorithm changes. This is great for google but I stand to lose everything I have inc my house and everything and there appears to be nothing I can do about it. I am even being held to ransom by the the link people who are asking for money to remove links or change anchor text. I have even thought of just changing the domain name and starting again but I have literally almost run out of money and in danger of going bust. So much for Googles Mantra of "do no harm" let them tell that to my family etc.
If your site has been hit algorithmically, rather than with a manual penalty, you should be able to fix at least some of the damage without paying to remove the bad links (that's pretty shady of people to ask you to pay for that!). Start by looking at the links that are coming in - if any stand out as especially disreputable, use the Google link disavow tool. You should be able to do this since you weren't the one who built those links.
The fact that this all coincided with your site re-launch leads me to believe that links aren't the only culprit here. I'd bet that something is going on on-site as well, either with your code or your content. Increased competition in your space may also be contributing. But it's unlikely that a bunch of very old backlinks that were there the whole time would cause you to fall out of the index, coincidentally, on the same day you re-launched your site.
I would fire that SEO company that told you bad links were the only factor and that you'd need to pay to get them removed - that's terrible advice. Get a second (and a third) opinion from other SEO companies. It sounds like you may not be able to afford an ongoing SEO engagement, but you may at least be able to purchase a site audit from a reputable SEO firm that will provide you with recommendations for changes you can make to your own site.
I'd also spend some time trying to build new, more reputable links to your site to help reduce the overall percentage of spammy inbound links in your link profile. Starting to build a community on places like Facebook or Twitter, and locking down your local search marketing presence (see David Mihm's post from today for more on that) also might help you drive more traffic from Google and non-Google sources.
Good luck!
"It also means that we should make sure our clients invest in diverse sources of traffic. If a site has more than 50% of its traffic coming from Google, that leaves you pretty vulnerable to changes in Google's algorithm."
I absolutely agree with you on that one! When you rely on any one source of traffic, be it Google or word of mouth referrals, you leave your business vulnerable. It's never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket because when things go south you've got no backup plan.
Great post Ruth, a refreshing perspective too, looking at it from both sides as an SEO and as a user of Google Search. Indeed over the past year or so, organic results have noticeably improved in quality & relevance, with 'Earned Rankings' being far more common place now than they used to be.
Ruth, I completely agree with you. I'm a website content writer, and Panda made my job much more enjoyable. Clients now ask me to write original content and don't expect me to spin other people's work (which I would always refuse to do!). Hooray for pandas!
Wow I am soo happy to hear that you're not being asked to spin other people's work anymore - I used to get the same requests and refusing was always super awkward.
Count me among the Panda lovers. Penguin too. Just a year or two ago, much of my "sales" time was taken up by working to gain the trust of potential clients who were scammed by spam-SEOs, or were afraid of that happening. I also had to spend a great deal of time getting clients to stop doing dumb stuff like keyword stuffing, buying thousands of junk links to "help" me, etc. Now, it seems like the lazier spammers have started to dwindle, the "Panda/Penguin destroyed my business" crowd has drawn attention to the fact that Google can and will crack down on those who cheat, so clients now seem to have a better understanding of right & wrong when it comes to SEO.
"Small businesses often don't have the resources to create the kind of consistent, deep, relevant content that Google really wants."
It is work now, no question. But if someone walked up to a business owner on the street, or in the front door, and asked a question or asked for help w/a problem, would the business owner not have the resources to answer them? Of course not -- THEY ARE THE RESOURCE. Them is the resource, so the resources do exist. The deal is, it's not the business owner dealing with the potential customer -- it's the business owner's site. So, getting the site to be as helpful, as knowledgeable, as smart, as the business owner him/herself -- that takes time and effort, and that's what is really at a premium. But YOU GOTTA DO IT SOMEHOW. Business owners need to see SEO (I call it 'inbound marketing') as a long term investment, not something that can turn traffic around on a dime. Once you know what you absolutely have to do, then you find a way. There is absolutely no other way for businesses owners to go, other than adwords. If you have $500 or less per month for SEO, you're better off opening up an adwords account instead.
I agree with your point about business owners being their own best resource. It's surprising to see how often business owners don't think of themselves in this way. Some of the most difficult campaigns I've managed were problematic because it was extremely difficult to get the owner involved in their own campaign. I'd love to hear how other SEOs work around this problem and get some of the more inside information about their clients' company/industry that they need to run their campaign.
nice post :) I love it too because my website is ranking very well after panda, but there are still too many spam sites in top positions. Lets go Panda, eat them alI :)
"Lets go Panda, eat them alI :)"
hahaha yeah! Go get them!
I really do agree with your point of view, Ruth.
And I would add another reason for loving the Panda:
Sure, Panda is not perfect and much s* is still present in the SERPs, but it was an obligated measure to take from Google (and caused by their Caffeine...)
That's a really great point about duplicate content, Gianluca. I know I had some cleaning up to do in that arena post-Panda!
Google is just trying to make their search more useful for users. If it's just returning rubbish the big G will be in trouble. It won't ever be perfect, but they have to make an effort to continually improve. Same as their competitors.
It's really not that different to other media, the rules change and people will always try to take advantage. Remember email before spam regulation came in. In Australia we have a do-not-call register for telemarketers. In South America there is a city (can't remember which one) where no billboards or signs are allowed. And the list goes on.
I used to be in a business where almost all out business came from fax marketing. Businesses need to adapt and use what works and what's cost effective. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a risky proposition.
I think the notion that at Google " they only care about serving up the most relevant results they can to as many people as they can.." is a too narrow view. I think Google care about making profit from as many corners of search and online activity as possible. Flight search these days might be the best example, a search for flights between popular destinations yields hardly any organic results above the fold (depending on resolution, of course) as Google gives preference to paid search and their own products (in this case their own flight search). Ultimately they care about creating SERP's that generate the most profit for Google. Traditionally this has meant giving the user the most relevant result possible. These days I'm not so sure.
I agree that Google has to consider their bottom line in every change they make, and flight search is a great example of how they're seeing how much traffic they can drive to Google-owned properties before users balk at the idea. That's a different issue, in my opinion, than whether changes like Panda are intended to decrease value of organic results in order to drive more traffic to PPC ads - a theory with which I disagree.
hi Ruth, I don't necessarily see the Panda update as a "scheme to drive more PPC traffic", but I think a general scepticism regarding Google's overall motives is in order...
I agree with you there.
Panda was a change for the better as it removed low cost low quality spam from the SERP. However, although I can't think of an alternative, Google's automated link based ranking system is fundamentally flawed and favours organisations with budgets. That's fine so long as users know this but by enlarge they don't. They assume Google is showing them the best results.
We need diversity in the search market and that will come as the web becomes more and more normal - I know it's normal for people reading this but it isn't for many others.
d
How can Panda be good if it is bad for small business? I am still waiting on Google to come up with better results like they had in the first 3 months of 2012...........
Ruth I like Google Panda, Google Panda mainly focus on content. They wants to keep Good quality of content for users not for search engines, I Completely Agree with you Ruth.
Ruth, all play by the rules SEOs are happy with Panda penalizing low quality sites.
Until they get hit by it, that is :)
Speaking of the crazy "bad panda", here's the full ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X21mJh6j9i4
And why should we whine about dear Google Panda? We're SEO Analysts; it IS our jobs to cater for the whims of google and other search engine.
So, If I'm understanding this right, it's best to get your traffic from other sources besides Google so that you will be less tramatized the next time Google changes its algorithms? I definitely would not want my new IM business to go into the toliet before I can get it off the ground! Any suggestions on the best way to go about getting non-Google traffic?
My fault for not being more specific. I meant being completely reliant on Google SEO is a risk. This would normally come up when a business (online or not) does their marketing plan and SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats).
Being completely reliant on Google (or any one thing) is an external threat to any business. It may be unlikely, but the impact could be huge. It's wise to come up with mitigation strategies and contingency plans.
As an example (may not be relevant to every situation). Alternative search engine traffic like Bing would help reduce the risk. You Tube and Social media may be able to drive traffic your way. Press Releases, can be very effective. Podcasting, Joint-Venture marketing, forum participation, display advertising, guest blogging, review sites etc. Are some alternative online traffic sources.
There's no reason why an online business shouldn't use offline methods to drive traffic, as long as it's cost effective. Joint-ventures, PR and display advertising work online and offline.
Google SEO can still be your primary source of traffic without being your only source of traffic.
Great post. Puts a lot of things into perspective. That bad panda animation if priceless! Bravo.
Happy to see you all
I am a newbie to the SEOMOZ
Haha! Yeah! Panda is a bad word for SEOs now! :P I am so pissed with panda that I stopped watching them at Zoo. Pandas are cute, but Google made them horrifying :D Wondering whats the status with penguins :D
Yes, even I love panda and penguin since such updates teach us a lot of lessons. If someone is wrong at what they are doing, he/she should be punished if we need to keep the search results valuable to users.
"Google...have the biggest pool of potential ad impressions and clicks to sell."
Google wants everyone to use Adwords \ PPC
Google wants Adwords to be easier / cheaper than hiring an SEO company \ In-House SEO employee.
many companies would focus on PPC, and Google makes more money.
Ruth, you are correct no like these type of updates but these types of guidelines necessary for SEO.
The big issue with Panda - it stills effects really great sites (from my experience) and for small to mid size businesses it has a disastrous effect
Thumbs up for this article Ruth! I am also a Panda lover. They are really cute :) Anyway, I tend to agree that the Panda update was an upsetting, stressful time for most SEOs and business owners. I have noticed that a lot of perfectly good content got knocked out with the bad, and a lot of innocent websites like those who are using white hat techniques were also affected. But this update has ultimately did make a lot of SERPs better, returning more trustworthy information that is more relevant to the query.
Good read Ruth! I've heard a lot of hand-wringing from SEO's about Panda/Penguin, and "Google wanting to get rid of SEO...", etc. Honestly, I don't get that impression. Although we can't know exactly what Google wants, I think it's fairly clear that they do want to do away with black hat SEO, and have taken steps toward that for years. The writing is on the wall, in my opinion, as far as that goes. A good SEO, in my humble opinion, helps their customer improve the quality and value (for the user) of their site, and helps them learn how to grow as a business, as an authority, etc. I personally feel there is a technical side to it, as well as a holistic approach. Although Panda/Penguin aren't perfect, I like them in that they are another step forward towards high quality and relevance. No matter how hard people try to avoid it, to fight it, or to find a way around it, ultimately it seems that the "winning combination" to improving rankings is to make yourself (the customer) a better authority on whatever subject matter your site is about. May not be quick and easy, but it seems to be, more and more, what gives a site that long term success with rankings. Great customer interaction, delivering the highest quality product you can to your customers, and continually trying to refine it.
To simplify it, an analogy. It's like getting in great shape and building muscle. Everyone wants the cheap, easy, cheat codes to achieve it. At the end of the day, you have to do the hard work, and if you are GOOD at what you do, you'll see the results. People keep trying to find ways to do better with their inferior product, inferior site, inferior SEO tactics. What they really need to be asking themselves is, "How can I improve my product? Is my product addressing as many of my customers' needs as possible? Is my product and presentation of it as relevant and high quality as possible?"
like all of above people i also agree with you because after these panda updation people used to write the original content and increase their content quality so that users are also getting good content and information about the product.
Google wants the SEO business to go away and just have everyone be SEMs. They have said it for years that they want people to just build good sites, with great content, and pay to to play when needed like a kumbaya hippy commune where we all just cheerfully give Google money and you get to rank, when you "deserve" to rank and organic is more of a truly unintentional effort like "oh yay, we rank #1 for toys" instead of "we have to figure out how to rank for toys"
Google feels that SEOs have destroyed the internet and in some ways they are right spammy and slimy SEO practices have filled the internet with cheap, low quality content, that doesn't add a lot of value. So look for Semantic search and improved local accessibility to be the way things move into. Semantic search is just Google deciding what you are really searching for so something locally or not locally etc so for instance if you have "Tony's Pizza" located in "Orlando" you want to show up in local semantic searches so when people search on their phones/computers for Italian Restaurants you want Tony's for whenever it is Geographically relevant to show up as the number 1 choice but you also want it to show up for Italian Restaurants in Orlando as well.
I love panda and penguin too, they have improved SERPs more than any other algo changes i've known. Its removed 75% of the spam from them and combined with the move to knowledge graph and more recent news results SERPs are now hugely improved
I agree, and love most google updates. I still remember when you could just add a bunch of background color keywords. I still think that the cream rises to the top regardless. It just rises faster with the updates. Not sure why seo people get so upset they know the bottom line to seo is that the best will win. I wrote a post about quit trying to beat google and just join them on one of my personal blogs basically going over this topic. Thanks for the great post.
I love Panda too. I remember being frustrated of not seeing relevant and quality content. Now it is easier to research and find what you are really looking for.
I totally agree! 2 thumbs up for this post.
As a lot of people and fellow professionals in the industry were kind of disappointed with the initial lay out of the Panda update.
Quality has increased in the SERP which is a good. It also is a wake up call not to take the industry for granted and that search is a multi faceted arena that is correlated with different factors all leading to a deeper and more quality content served.
But is there also a possibility that part of the reason, small part but still a part, to be improving income from adwords !?
Serps are looking better indeed and I agree the main reason for sure was to have better serps overall but I still can't believe why you are not mentioning it since there is much info in this direction - and more then that it's ok and it make sense - i would state it loud and clear if i were google :)
Of course that is a possibility - unfortunately Google is notoriously opaque on these topics and it's hard to get real insight into their motivations.
The point of my post was not to say that Google Panda was a completely altruistic move, or that SERP improvement can't possibly have a benefit to Google AdWords as well - merely to point out that as much as we SEOs complain about it, it did improve the quality of the SERPs.
I use Google for checking SERP positions and that's about it. They MAY have improved slightly but Google's not even close to reliable for when you need real answers and NOW.
When I'm looking for answers, I use duckduckgo.com. Look up your query there and I assure you you will get the best results of all!
Personally, I disagree. Google doesn't always get it right, but it seems to be better at handling complex informational queries better than the competition. For example, when I type "how many Israeli citizens are there" into DuckDuckGo, about half of the results are completely irrelevant to this question, but include the words "Israeli" and "citizen" in the title tag. Google, on the other hand, correctly judges that pages about "how many people live in Israel" might be helpful. If I read the top 10 Google results and the top 10 DuckDuckGo results, I will probably be better informed with Google. As another example, compare the results for [us government crack]. Google knows I'm thinking about Iran-Contra; DuckDuckGo thinks the first result should be from Cracked.com, and nothing about Iran-Contra appears in the top 10 results.
Funnily enough, I read through the entire article and it still seems like you don't really like Panda after all :)
I like Panda, just not as much as I like small and local businesses succeeding through quality marketing tactics :-)
Ruth -
I've had this same experience multiple times recently:
"Lately, I've been speaking to some college classes on SEO and when I start to talk about Panda, I ask if they remember a time when it seemed like every search they did turned up shallow, worthless results that seemed to talk about what they wanted, but didn't actually provide any answers. And you know what? They all remember, and they all agree that SERPs have improved significantly since then."
I've also had my mom ask "What's happened to Google?" when the domain crowding came into play (which seems to be much better now). It's always interesting to get into the minds of others searching, because that tells us so much about our jobs and what people really want (and click on).
I totally agree, John. It's an important reminder that SEO and Google updates have effects outside of our little tech bubble.
When there is a war raging on, we need to accept the collateral damages with resignation of course. Great achievement never comes without great loss. Google is waging a war against spammy SEO techniques and bad websites that are not adding any value to users experience. Since its algo is not perfect, no one is perfect in fact, some good sites have also got affected by this algo change. We need to accept this as there is nothing we can do.
I love the video of the panda wreaking havoc in the office (Mac computers circa 1990?). I also heartily agree with your statement: "Small businesses often don't have the resources to create the kind of consistent, deep, relevant content that Google really wants."
Most of my web development clients are small businesses and they know absolutely nothing about SEO, so ignorance is the likely culprit of the average Panda-slap in my opinion. They often don't know what SEO is, how it works and (most importantly) why they need it. Even though I'm primarily a web/software developer, I try to educate my clients because most of them are in the dark.
Ruth! i love the way you presented about Google Panda. Especially Bad Panda :). Good Post.
Thanks Ruth, I totally agree, as a Google Searcher, I am finding more relevant data but as a SEO, I will say, I am more happy because at-least Google set some standards to have more relevant information.
BTW, I like the animation under Bad Pandas Heading.
Ruth exactly their is not a single reason why folks hate that update I agree many of us had lost their business due to that famous update I like to say it as a Biggest Event in the Search Marketing World, but still its totally false argument that Panda had changed the way of Search Engine Optimization. Google had always guided us how they works and what are the factors they consider while ranking a website. We all had the famous guidelines before panda but the only reason we were not taking it seriously is that all of us found that Google ranking was also get influenced with unethical or low quality activities of promotions. But one day fake fun has come to an end. After Panda the world of Search Engine Optimization get real meaning and we all witness that we are now in the Era of Inbound Marketing.
I remember the words from Rand in one of his Great White Board Friday I really inspired a lot "Today is the worlds of usability and user experience and social and SEO, are all coming together. It's not just classic SEO anymore. It's not just social media marketing anymore. It's not just content marketing. If these practices don't work together, we don't really get optimized the way we want to."
Well Ruth I am totally agree with you that Pandas are loveable and so are the Penguins too.
Thanks,
Sanket Patel.
Thanks Sanket - that's one of my favorite Whiteboard Fridays too.
Im absolutely agreeing with the thumbs up for Panda! Cheers for this wonderfull article!
i totally agree that search has gotten MUCH better than in previous years.
Hi Ruth,
Awesome post and I agree with you totally. Panda and Penguin and the EMD update have all been good for users. You are also right when you say there's still a long way to go. These are just algorithms and bots after all. They aren't very bright, and certainly not even close to being human. That's why there's still so much garbage in the index.
Unfortunately, there were a few months of this year where Google results got so bad that both I and several family members dumped it as our favorite Search engine and switched over to Bing. At some point between July and October one of the updates resulted in so little domain diversity that I was seeing 7-8 results from the same company sometimes on every SERP. It was literally impossible to research anything.
I wonder if Dr. Pete's hypothesis that Google actually made a mistake with one of their algo updates this year isn't actually true. Regardless, is does seem that things have normalized a bit, but there were a few weeks in there where I thought Google had completely lost it!
Because I work for companies that do great #RCS and haven't ever engaged in any shady link-building tactics, none of the algo updates have effected us at all. Which is frustrating for exactly the opposite reason that some other SEOs are upset. I was really hoping that by Google getting rid of so much crap that our sites might actually benefit. They didn't. At all. What we've observed is the strong getting stronger, the weak and the small getting kicked in the gut if they were shady, and completely ignored if they are on the up and up. There we are, on page 5, just like we always have been, regardless of all the stuff we've optimized and the content we've worked our tails off creating. Maybe this was bound to happen as big brands like Newsweek make the transition to the digital world. Still, it's no bed of roses for us little guys, regardless of the color of our hats.
Thanks for the great post! I enjoyed it.
Dana
Yes, you are right after panda updates there are lots of improvement in search result. I support Google updates because their aim is to provide best services to their users.
Hey Ruth,
Panda got rid of ezine in the SERPs. For that alone I like it. Like others have already said though, it's not perfect. I don't really have anything else to add here since this topic has been beaten to death, but I just wanted to say thanks for the GIFs.The bad panda one was really funny.
Also, your 'How to Get Rid of Fleas' example reminded me of 'how to get rid of bed bugs.' SO much garbage. It can be fun to analyze that garbage and figure out why it's in the SERPs though.
If your post was titled 'Why I Love Google Penguin' I probably would have went off on a rant here, but it wasn't so I won't.
Cheers
Hi there Ruth. I apologize if I totally have to disagree with what you say about this. How about you try to search for payday loans, loans, car loans and other search terms that are more competitive on Google and see what kind of crappy results you'll get. Google Panda didn't make the search better, it actually made it worst. Try to see it for yourself and tell me if I'm lying about this one. Google Panda just opened the doorway for blackhat SEOs to succeed. Someone tell me if I'm lying about this...
Surely nobody is here to accuse you of lying about this or any other things :-)
It's true that there are areas of the internet that because of their competitive nature get filled up with spam much much faster than other verticals. I don't have a lot of hope for the verticals you mention ever being filled with anything but spam simply because of how MUCH spam there is out there on those topics.
I don't mean to say that Panda is perfect and in every way made things better (in fact I said as much in my post), but I disagree that Google Panda just opened the doorway for blackhat SEOs. I applaud Google's efforts to discourage spam, and I think Panda made a noticeable improvement in the SERPs - which is different than saying that I think there is no spam at all anymore. We've got a long way to go combatting spam, and every time an update is released there will be new black hats finding new loopholes.
I'm just trying to make a point. I guess the message that I'm trying to convey is that, it's gonna be tough for your business if you play the fair game completely. Sometimes conventional wisdom can hurt your strategies. Yes, Google can catch up to the blackhat SEOs, but by the time they do, they've already gained a lot from the previous algorithm update. Just saying.;)
Great Post i think its important for people to understand why google does these algorithm changes. We need to start thinking about what is good for users more and less about manipulating google.
I love the idea of Panda but it doesn't seem to be working among my competitors. A lot of them have extremely thin or scraped content but still rank really well… it's frustrating. I want it to work.
Great post, Ruth. I personally love that Google is starting to reward higher-quality content, even if it means more work for SEOs and business owners doing their own digital marketing. I'm interested in your opinion on something: You said future updates like Panda will be less harmful to small business owners because they will be more aware of what Google does and does not want you to do. Do you think this will cause an increase in consultation/education work in the SEO industries? If not, do you think business owners will take the initiative to learn about the latest algorithm updates themselves and adjust their SEO efforts accordingly?
Again, thanks for the post! Keep up the good work.
I said I hope future updates will be less harmful to small business owners because they're more aware - it's one of my fondest hopes. I imagine that it will cause an increase in the amount of consultation/education work in SEO - at the very least I'll bet that SEO engagements with consultants or agencies will focus more on internal user education than in the past. I think it's more likely that business owners will continue to hire in-house or agency SEOs to keep up with the algo, rather than doing it themselves, though, simply because they probably won't have that kind of time.
Thanks for the response. I agree that agencies and in-house-ers will most-likely continue to dominate, though I hope user-education becomes a bigger part of the overall SEO packages offered by industry professionals.
Thanks again!
Great article Ruth. The results are better but there are still a lot of improvements needed.
At least the problem with low quality content has been fixed.
I believe they have done a better job with panda than they did with penguin. That is, from what I have seen.
I dont think anything relating to search is as black and white as you make it our in your article. If you ask a bunch a college students a question the way you phrased of course they will agree. If you also asked do you think search results are worse today they might agree. How do you measure user experience and has it improved since Panda? A good question for Google. In my opinion they might have gotten rid a lot of poor quality sites but they also decreased search diversity by increasing the power of branded sites. Why do I need Google to find the right page on Wikipedia, Amazon or TripAdvisor? In my mind this shows the weakness of the algorithm and not the strength.
That's an interesting point (although I would argue it's difficult to present all sides of an issue in a blog post, and obviously my examples are anecdotal, as I pointed out).
I think Google has moved too far toward big brands recently and suspect they will relax on that a bit. There's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" thing happening - do we patronize big brand sites because that's what shows up in Google? Or does our patronizing of big brand sites drive Google to display them more because that's what they think we want? If we as users really want to patronize smaller sites than Wikipedia and Amazon, we need to show Google that by "voting with our feet" as it were. As long as people search for something, click on Wikipedia, find what they want and then don't search again, I doubt Google's going to kick it out of the algorithm.
Hi RuthBurr!
I am agree with you but even i want to bring update you that Google making changes in their following algorithm such as Panda and Penguin, cause they want to increase their PPC Revenue ultimately. Perspective of all updates in algorithm is just alleviating of PPC Revenue from Google End, cause those online business that depends on organic results with high conversion rate, if they defeat with Panda update or else any update in algorithm, then they must have to move with PPC option.
Apart from this, I do agree that if website has quality and unique content in viewpoint of search engines and users, then website can easily rank well through quality and authorized back links in major search engines.
Though entire post about Panda update from your end RuthBurr :) I would like to ask you one question that Why Google launched EMD update even Matt already had video conversions that keyword in domain name is the best single to rank in top?
I will be glad to see the answer for the same :)
Venkatesh What ?
The Google algorithm updates is not for discovering the earning opportunities by PPC for them. Instead of that, Updates had open a vast business opportunities for us while working ethically. Their was a time when nobody knows what exactly a webmaster or SEO's do but now every person who owns a website know that this is kind of work which drives metrics.
I do agree that updates learn us so many things about natural SEO, but you know, many peoples had hardly effected through all this kind of updates and they push their business in the direction of PPC because they had huge investment in their business and they have to maintain their revenue levels whether they do organic or paid SEO. Anyways, its your concern about updates but i am clear with all this updates from Google.
It is true that companies are more likely to spend on PPC if they're whacked in organic rankings. Some large providers give them to clients in this scenario also. I always thought it was just a side effect of an update and not potentially illegal behavior by Google. The cases I've seen were short lived. I can't see Google doing this, they've got better ways to make money that are perfectly ethical.
Hi Venkatesh,
I actually disagree with your theory that every update Google makes is to increase their PPC ad revenue. As I mentioned in my post, Google retains market share by having the most relevant results - the only reason they can charge so much for PPC ads is that their organic results are good enough that people keep using Google. They need to improve the quality of both to succeed.
I suspect that Google launched the EMD update because they discovered that having a keyword in the domain name is no longer an indicator of quality, and that people are more likely to click on a trusted brand than an EMD site. Even though this may not have been true in the past, it's true now, and Google has to adjust to that.
Hi RuthBurr!
Glad to see response!
I agree, Google organic results are good enough to help online users, but due to their organic algo updates that peoples who are trying to hard to rank on top of Google, they are loosing their ranking due to many other causes such as exact match domain and top heavy layouts which are really different now in viewpoint of ranking singles. Anyways, its all about natural SEO with quality sources to rank natural way in Google.
Thanks for the response :)