Friday, May 06, 2011 at 11:22 AM
Webmaster level: All
In recent months we’ve been especially focused on helping people find high-quality sites in Google’s search results. The “Panda” algorithm change has improved rankings for a large number of high-quality websites, so most of you reading have nothing to be concerned about. However, for the sites that may have been affected by Panda we wanted to provide additional guidance on how Google searches for high-quality sites.
Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or signals. Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year. In fact, since we launched Panda, we've rolled out over a dozen additional tweaks to our ranking algorithms, and some sites have incorrectly assumed that changes in their rankings were related to Panda. Search is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users.
What counts as a high-quality site?
Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find "high-quality" sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content. The recent "Panda" change tackles the difficult task of algorithmically assessing website quality. Taking a step back, we wanted to explain some of the ideas and research that drive the development of our algorithms.
Below are some questions that one could use to assess the "quality" of a page or an article. These are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves as we write algorithms that attempt to assess site quality. Think of it as our take at encoding what we think our users want.
Of course, we aren't disclosing the actual ranking signals used in our algorithms because we don't want folks to game our search results; but if you want to step into Google's mindset, the questions below provide some guidance on how we've been looking at the issue:
- 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?
Writing an algorithm to assess page or site quality is a much harder task, but we hope the questions above give some insight into how we try to write algorithms that distinguish higher-quality sites from lower-quality sites.
What you can do
We've been hearing from many of you that you want more guidance on what you can do to improve your rankings on Google, particularly if you think you've been impacted by the Panda update. We encourage you to keep questions like the ones above in mind as you focus on developing high-quality content rather than trying to optimize for any particular Google algorithm.
One other specific piece of guidance we've offered is that low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings, and thus removing low quality pages, merging or improving the content of individual shallow pages into more useful pages, or moving low quality pages to a different domain could eventually help the rankings of your higher-quality content.
We're continuing to work on additional algorithmic iterations to help webmasters operating high-quality sites get more traffic from search. As you continue to improve your sites, rather than focusing on one particular algorithmic tweak, we encourage you to ask yourself the same sorts of questions we ask when looking at the big picture. This way your site will be more likely to rank well for the long-term. In the meantime, if you have feedback, please tell us through our Webmaster Forum. We continue to monitor threads on the forum and pass site info on to the search quality team as we work on future iterations of our ranking algorithms.
319 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 319 of 319Its so sad to read so many people being hurt by this. I hope that Google and the good team of search augment their Algo for finding quality content to include us. Quality content should be decided by us, not a persons intellect, credentials or ability to satisfy a listing in an Encyclopedia. The people will decide and have always decided with their feet (or mouse click on exit).
Music is decided by Fans why not content?
What would music be like if it was purely judged by it's music credentials? Music is decided by fans liking, sharing and buying. Facts are just facts, boring by themselves. I would rather read an article written with passion than written like an Encyclopedia entry. How do you judge passion with an Algo? (see music fans)
I know that Amit and the good team at Google search are human too and this must be hurting them as well to see good honest business people in pain.
All the best to everyone.
Alas, whatever Amit says, Google either cannot or does not want to distinguish quality sites from low quality sites. With just a few exceptions, well written and well researched pages from our quality themed travel information sites, for which we regularly get enthusiastic emails of thanks from users , are listed well below pages from very large "travel" sites whose thousands of pages are stuffed with clueless banalities such as "Avila is a beautiful city in Spain. It is surrounded by ramparts. The cathedral is very famous. " end of article.
I'm exaggerating a bit, but google on "Avila Spain" and look at the sites that come up on the first page; they include some pretty poor sites and also a link to Yahoo travel which is essentially a collection of links to other sites.
Google: I'm afraid that your algorithm gets poor marks when it comes to distinguishing quality content sites from sites filled with totally banal content, that if they are not scraped from another site, are simply rehashed Wikipedia or something similar... this is certainly the case in the field of travel sites.
It shouldn't be too hard to distinguish a good authoritative page from a bit of rehashed or copied wiki.
Good pages can be recognized by:
Syntax: including punctuation, sentence structure, sentence length, word distribution, paradigms, etc. You rarely find good content in badly written or very basically structured web articles. And vice versa.
Lexis: word use and breadth of vocabulary. There is generally a corollary between the number of different words used on a website, and the quality of the information provided - though this will vary from theme to theme.
Links from authority sites; the problem here may lie with what Google considers to be authority sites. Links from blogs, wikis and forums should hold far less weight, as even the best can be manipulated. Links from library sites, edu sites (though not student pages), other academic sites, should be weighted far more heavily, as these are far less easy to manipulate, and librarians and universities do tend to be fairly authoritative.... specially in the sites that they recommend to their students.
Anteriority: I second what several others have said on this page, and am astonished how Google, with all its power, often seems incapable of distingushing the original article from the same article copied on a scraper site or a blog or a wiki.
You say: "low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings, and thus removing low quality pages"
Any suggestion on how to find wich pages are low-quality?
Can someone from Google please go over my site askthetrainer dot com and its subdomains and give a recommendation.
It is pretty ridiculous that someone can't simply tell you a simple yes or no answer to a question that can impact a website, its owner and his/her family.
I would like to see Google set up a site where individual writers could put their articles through a google review and have google tell them whether they think the article is acceptable or not. Then the author could re-do the article until it is as Google desires. This way, authors are not punished because they write for sites that are less than Google desires. A lot of good work is going to waste because Google made these changes and it seems no matter how well an article is written, Google generally ranks it poorly or not at all.
"The day I start writing articles to please algorithm writers is the day I will give up writing and publishing my own ideas."
My impression is that Panda is about encouraging site owners to write and publish for readersm, not for search engines. The new algorithm obviously needs work (for one thing, it's far too forgiving of keyword-driven UGC megasites that make eHow look like Encyclopedia Britannica), but any reasonably dispassionate observer would have to say that the *goals* behind Panda are worthy even if the execution is imperfect.
This is another attempt to let user know what Google cooks daily for users to give them what is best.
I don't get it, we adhere to all these rules, yet we still received a lashing when PANDA came into affect - how do you recover your traffic from this if there is nothing to change on your site(s) - in accordance to those bullet points?
When Panda came in later this year, our website (In Australia) which is the "authority" for bridgestone tyres in Australia went down in generic searches for "tyres". BAsed on competiotor intelligence we outrank these other sites in vists or close to them in and we have more qulity backlinks being a global brand.
The sites now getting the higher ranks use our content sometimes word for word to decsribe the bridgestone tyres they are selling retail.
These sites are also ridden with ads.
So much for the brand being in control and the authority on its own products!
We dropped from 2nd position to 7th in a week after maintaining 1st or 2nd position for years.
Panda is a joke!
one of my sites was DE-INDEXED on this latest update.... not sure why.
We have an optin page as our homepage with a blog on the site as well.
can't tell me its because of an optin page?
you never get a specific answer from google, its just 'try and figure it out from our generic list of 900 factors'.
yet when i look at sites ranking well, they're mostly garbage sites.
makes no sense.
Good for these changes in the algorithms of Google. Now some mediocre pages of the first places, will give way to pages of relevant content with articles orthographically spelled correctly. Panda looks for a good user experience.
LinkMunki is wrong about the auto-translation (i.e, machine translation). Machine translation, as I have pointed out in my latest post, WILL be hit by Panda. Don't believe it? Well, apart from the fact that machine translation does not meet some of the criteria listed in this post, Matt Cutts has also stated that “Auto-generated stuff also applies to auto-translated text“.
Isn't there an assumption here that the only good sites are those which are article driven where people find the articles and link into them?
Well, think of what's on services - Ticketmaster does not provide massive articles on shows - why would it, some shows last only 1 day .. and no, people wont link to a 1 day show ... the algo used to cope with all this just fine but now it can only cope with long running shows where it can see the content as an "article" ...
Now its been a long time to passed away so can you please updates some latest update of Google panda.
I am sick and tired (like most of you) on guys stealing our web content and publishing at their blogs or websites. From time to time we had to take legal actions which result in waste of time and money.
Why not use either the Author tag
META NAME="Author" CONTENT="sitename with extension"
or copyright tag
meta name="copyright" content="sitename with extension"
to identify fresh content and record the author so that the original content has authority.
The tricky part is that one need to include the page in sitemap as soon as it is up and submit to webmaster tool or submit the individual page through webmaster tools.. Any thought on this?
for newbie like me, is so hard to understood, many thx for share,
This post is absolutely unbelievable.
Google is now screening posts to determine whether they tell "both sides of the story?!!!"
The subjective criteria described here smack of censorship. I am baffled as to how an algorhythm can determine this issue.
I constantly speculate why Google can not make a decision what content is original and a copy, you will not be based on a timestamp? If the content is copied from a very clear, first edition, so depending on what the technology index of the first and only your know when it is published in the unique perspective content, and scrapers can not be illustrious?
I did learn to spell the word algorithm from this article, that's one positive. Although the day after my comment posted here, my site traffic halved again. Maybe I'm paranoid. But that doesn't mean there aren't people in the machine doing things to it that I can't see...
Thanks Amid,
I'm practicing your suggestion to do deeper analysis for my readers.
I'm looking for your further guides. Perhaps more practical guide in expressing good value in writing.
I hope Google provide "Writing Session" to webmasters the same as new launch Google guide for online business. I think this is a good idea.
I'm appreciate your guide!
Panda is laughable. Absolutely laughable.
Any notion of "user signals" being the key to measuring the quality of sites is total, complete, utter trash.
The simple fact is that a TON of legitimate sites, excellent sites, are getting smashed now, my own included, by sites that are just fecal matter.
Some sites, such as my own, just don't fit into the nice, normal mold of what Panda is using to judge everything.
NOT ALL SITES HAVE THE SAME GOALS.
Yet, Panda is treating each site as if it *does* have the same goals (both for the site and the visitor).
Some sites *want* users to bounce around, visit other sites, and come back.
WE WANT THAT.
WE WANT active comparison and engagement. We want users to leave our site and come back. ("Poor" bounce rates are sometimes desirable.) Whatever "user signals" like bounce rate and other notions Google is using to "prove" to themselves its working can be summed up in one word: delusional.
Panda is somehow being viewed as a silver bullet, and it's not even close.
Delusional is far more accurate.
And, worst of all, with every Panda update, my traffic drops more and more and the crap sites above me continue to rise.
Any human can see they're crap, but Googlers keeps drinking their own Kool-Aid and thinking they've done--and are doing--the right thing.
Listen up, Google, PANDA ISN'T WORKING. The crap scraper sites are as bad as ever, *AND* now you're killing legitimate businesses.
Here's a thought: stop trying to refine it. Undo it. Oh well. Cut your losses. Move on. You can't polish a turd.
Sure, you may have killed SOME scraper sites, but others are still there, and more are back and springing up daily.
Ultimately, seeing that the real objective isn't even being met, was it worth it to destroy so many legitimate businesses in the process?
Honest
I can not find substantial benefit from the new Google algorithm
Just as in the previous methods to grab the first results
There are many ways now to hold in the same score
Remote control of the Google Banda
But if the officials' thinking on these algorithms to be a follow-up from inside the panel WEB MASTER
It will be different
The second thing it
Should allow Google to webmasters so-called immediate update
now
If you want to produce something will have to stay 4 days to see the results and possibly more in some cases
This thinking is harmful to the overall site manager
:: SEO MAN ::
MALAYSIA
Panada seems like a total farce seeing that website like aortic valve replacement.com (no spaces) ranks #2 for the keyword 'aortic valve replacement' even though the content is totally skimmed AND it violates the AdSense terms by having 6 different ad blocks on their pages. Seems like Google doesn't care what the content is, just as long as their making more revenue from crappy AdSense websites like that one.
I guess whatever it takes to get my Google stock back up to $700 again, huh?
oI have a shopping site for aquarium products, www.aqpumps.com
Essentially, the site has about 4000 products listed by category. There aren't any articles, just a place to shop. The site has been up for about 1.5 years with steadily increasing traffic, and no changes other than to add product and maybe a relevant graphic on the home page.
My traffic dropped significantly in mid-October. I've been told it's probably Panda related. Can anyone give me some guidance as to remedial actions I might take?
I knew now that quality content is king of our blogs.. 23 questions above, I permit to re-publish at my blog but I put it with backlink to this post.. Thanks for sharing
I'm probably in the minority here but I haven't had any trouble with the Panda update. I do appreciate the details you provided and agree 100% that it's all about delivering great quality content.
Yes, as many have pointed out ehre, there are some glitches, oversights and things that Google needs to adjust for and tweak because there are people gaming the system while honest, quality content providers are getting hurt.
Given the massive amount of data being published on the web every day, I think some people are being too harsh on Google for not keeping up fast enough.
I think given enough time Google will make many more tweaks and improvements and we'll see the great content sites keep doing better in the search engines and the con artists will fall by the wayside.
In the end it still costs me nothing to use Google and for that, I'm grateful.
Michael
Thorne Smith Biographer
As you have mentioned everywhere that Panda is going to hits mostly the sites of low quality, and most of the points that you mentioned to determine the quality of website is just Quality of Content. Then I think a website that has just the product description and the title belongs to low quality as there will be very little new and original content on the page and mostly the image and/or video of that product.
How one will do the SEO for an online product store without adding any more content to it. If I have little but Unique Description (such as UGC) for the Product on the Page will you consider it a Quality Page?
Regards,
ALICKA
scraper is scraper but which version of contents will be likely to index first, those from blog agreagator or the blogger it self. since the time of crawling might be surpassing the google crawl bot.
Ok, with Panda my Blogs doesn't changed their position in Google serch results, that's a good thing for me, it seems my articles were goods
I have a lot of blogger blogs copying my blog entries verbatim too. Problem with DMCA is that you have to report per post when they have copied hundreds...
The majority of comments here tell of self taught webmasters struggling with web standards and Google guidelines.
Accessability, usability, content and compression optimisation should be the things webmasters strive for, and this is barely mentioned at all.
Go forth and shorthand your css and the Google God will be pleased. . .
I am loosing faith in google at providing quality sites and not the site that just have massive links coming into it.
A recent competitors site :
I see links from adults site, links from sites / pages that just redirect straight the his site. His site made a jump in the SERP and stayed at the top for competitive keywords based on the fact that he clearly paid someone to get very low quality links. His site still remains at the top
thanks info.
I have a "clean" blog if I look over your set of rules, nevertheless your Panda kick from the 18th November pushed me 5 months back dropping my blog traffic by 50%. I don't think it's fair at all. I am very disappointed, upset and discouraged..I put so much work and heart in my blog...
http://unikorna.blogspot.com/
It is a little chaotic right now as I see a lot of spammy pages on page one and they are loaded with adsense. Conspiracy maybe? More clicks to adsense and more money in big G's pocket?
Still chaotic, pages with adsense all over them and garbage content still rank well. Guess its more money in big G's pocket.
I guess the fact that Amit has not responded to ANY of the comments on this posting speaks loads about his (and Google's) attitude towards user feedback.
For me, my 'flagship' website (which is 100% original content written by me over the last few years and pre-Panda held top SERP positions) now languishes somewhere low down in the SERPs behind rubbish copy sites since the great Panda sat on it.
Luckily I can still pay my bills as in response to Panda I created a bunch of keyword-domain-name websites with nothing but images and affiliate links on them. They sit at the top of the results now ahead of many great sites and pages.
I feel sorry for those webmasters who worked hard on their sites which sit below my rubbish sites, but hey, I couldn't stand seeing my kids starve any more as a result of Panda.
The answer to the Panda problem is to forget about all your hard work and build a few new rubbish sites ... and of course, don't hold out any hope that Google will pay any attention to what the users have to say. Amit has proved that once and for all.
PS. I have not used my normal gmail account for this post in fear of retribution by Google on my websites. You think I'm joking?
Great.. Can u tell me how to get backlinks form google and twitteR??
Very useful post. Thanks for share.
Clearly a lot of sites are being penalized just like us for reasons "no one" can clearly articulate. Writing a high level fluff article like this does nothing to actually help those who do write original high quality content and just want to know the rules. Spouting ambiguous subjective rules is pretty easy. Now back it up with some details if help is "really" what you're offering.
Great article…I am a newbie to the “post-Panda” issues so this was particular informative. However, a follow article could pick up from this point to properly educate people like me about “twitter” and other organic technologies recognized by Google…
Thanks for a very clear article.
All of the Web owner's in the world who can use google for getting visitor's and providing better contents on our website but I can feel on the basis of search results that google provided is much of 3rd class as the name and position of Google in the field of Internet/Technology, it can't maintain the indexing and ranking of a website in correct manner. I can see google provided the keywords which you can't want and the indexing where U can't feel good why? because Google becomes Old-age and can't bear the Accurate performance due to overload of websites over internet.
In my own case I can see the performance of webmaster tools provided by google as well as the crawling, indexing and ranking by google. why google can do this??
Is google going to its end now??
Is google can't care all??
Is google cantains corrupted algorithms??
Is Google's Enemies are stronger than google??
Is google overloaded??
Is google earn more as thought??
What.....What......What
What is the Reason behind this??
How can you tell if someone has scraped your content? and are websites like beforeitsnews.com considered content scrapers?
The question is: are the results for any given search more relevant?
I'm comforting my self that so many people have problems with the way Google rank content. I publish my own original photos as wallpapers and I used to ranked no 5 for iPad Wallpaper but now I'm not sure where my blog is and on mobile devises I'm nearly non existent. If you search for iPad Wallpaper you will get many sites with copied content from flickr etc. Anyway im not impressed...
is this article also available in other languages?
This was very helpful. I hope to put this advice to use in my articles and websites.
Finally a very well written blog post that every webmaster should read very carefully.
I believe that Google makes lots of efforts to improve the ranking of high quality sites. That is very good!
It has been almost a year since Google rolled out Panda 1.0 and Google has still been unable to 1) Fix the algorithm to do more good than harm 2) Explain the algorithm in any language which can be translated to English.
It really is depressing that these people are in charge of the world's most popular search engine.
whole google is a spam...if we thinkg according to panda update and algorithm.. google cant judge anyone's article just with matching keywords or tags or titles. Every car has 4 wheels that doesn't mean its copied. Every article requires some common keywords so the users get what they want.
If you look for a keyword "md313ll/a"
laptopreviewsadvisor.com/apple-macbook-pro-md313lla-review/ is #2 and is full of spinned content.
I wonder if that content is considered as a unique one?
What if my guest blogger/co-author re-publishing (copying) his own article to my multi-author blog? What should I do?
Mirza, you need to have some terms and conditions for your guest bloggers stating that they cannot do that. If you do not like the duplicate content on your site remove it.
thank you google for this article
First, I think it is fantastic that there are Googlers who are willing to share detailed information that may be helpful to web masters and online marketers.
However, some of the things we've seen recently as a result of Google Search Plus Your World seems to contradict many of these 23 questions. Danny Sullivan highlighted how Mark Zuckerberg's mostly-blank Google+ profile was given prime position in a search for the phrase "Facebook". If you Cross Reference Zuck's profile with these 23 Panda questions, the results aren't pretty. What gives?
You say - "We encourage you to keep questions like the ones above in mind as you focus on developing high-quality content rather than trying to optimize for any particular Google algorithm."
I say - How can anyone possibly try to optimize for a particular algorithm when NOBODY (other than those at Google) knows what the algo updates consist of? That's poor content right there!
We often hear the phrase "Content is King" - which should perhaps say "Unique and Relevant Content is King" - but has anyone any views on what the actual percentage of unique content should be on a web page?
There are obviously numerous sentences and phrases that are used on billions of web pages - so is 100% unique content actually (always) possible?
If it isn't - then what percentage of being unique should we all be aiming for and what does the Big G consider to be acceptable?
I feel fervently about this and I like learning.
I'm assuming that this post will also be useful or relevant to forthcoming Panda update that is going to target 'overly-optimised' websites...
One thing that confuses me with the ongoing updates and the emphasis of user generated content, making your site more social etc...Is what happens if these users post poor quality articles/postings or duplicate content?
Does a site get penalised for this as well. Soon we'll all be spending all our time policing our websites and not getting any work done :-)
Google loves great content and websites that are always providing great content. Spam websites don’t do anything for me and you and they eventually hurt Google. I think Google is working hard, but still there are many content scrapers who get ranks higher than the original writer, I think Google panda update is even punishing some high quality site.
Rackmount LCD
Hi Amit,
I am new to SEO and doing directory submissions and need your expert advice regarding right way to do directory submissions, I don't want to get caught in keyword(anchor text) spamming by using exact keyword for all directory submissions.
Please guide me what should be the right title and description structure for directory submission and can i do submissions with same title and description in multiple directories.
Your expert advice will be extremely helpful for all SEO's and webmasters.
Thanks in advance.
My blog has tons of images, and I have given credit to where it is from, if it is not my own image. Does this affect my google rank?
Thanks!
Vidya
I don't think they really care as long as the copyright infringing site is making them money with Adsense ads. If google is afraid of content spam, its worst fear that someone might decode its algorithm could vanish forever with the Panda update that makes its algorithm completely vulnerable to be decoded!
Clearly you've failed because your search results are a mess, I can show sites breaking all your rules yet still ranking well.
I can show you sites that break none, have good content and lots of social proof that you've destroyed.
It's strange big adwords spenders and adsense publishers seem to have done well with your penguin?
My site was doing better in serps since you started your Panda updates and then on April 24th your Penguin has slapped it?
Explain why panda likes it and penguin doesn't, explain why you are ranking blank pages?
Has anyone at Google noticed your search results are a mess?
It would be better for you to correct your own website before you start preaching to the world!
Our website was already doing good and since the new algorithm it is doing even better. I continue to spot check keywords and phrases and our website is still gaining increased ranking.
My secret.....We are creating an informational, educational, customer centered website. We update our information frequently as information relevant to our industry is published or our research shows we need better content for customer reasons, not Google reasons. I NEVER copy content but am also not concerned about outgoing links to good, relevant content. Lots of internal linking for customer information, so my content is rarely duplicated.
Google is right-build a great website for your customers and sales and somehow your site is recognized by Google for it.
"Are the articles short,"
I have always had issues with the fact that Google equates article length with quality. I personally don't want to read 1000 words to get the answer to a specific question. I want to read as little as possible.
My main site is based on our past paper magazine that provided short,digest-style 250-400 word articles on over 30 specific topics within the physical education/coaching field. The articles are all accompanied by an article summary, because our clientelle doesn't want to read even 250 words if they don't have to.
Each article is unique and professionally-written (by me). We have over 2000 such articles posted.
With the latest Google tweaks, we have fallen from #4 to the middle of the second page and are now below a number of sites that provide only syllabus information for specific university departments. Definitely NOT what people typing my keyword are searching fo.
This "length" criterion makes absolutely no sense. Bigger should not be equated with quality. If a real Google evaluator ever read our website, they'd realize that.
If there wouldn't still be so many spammy websites or legitimate sites with poor usability in the top ranks of the serps, it would be kind of funny you guys have to point this out. I hope we will see less link building, more quality content and usability soon!
If there would't still be so much SPAM and legitimate websites with very poor usability in the SERPS, it would be funny you guys have to point out those things. Fpr users, clients and good SEOs I hope the future holds better quality content and good usability.
killer article, hope google rank my blog
Eccomerce sites by nature will have hundreds or thousands of pages that only have minor differences. Example: Our site sells TV parts. In most cases the exact same part fits several hundred TV models. The only thing on each page that may be different may be the actual model numbers. One option post panda is to collapse all 100 plus pages into a single page but this is a very poor user experience. Its much cleaner to have one pager per product - so customers do not get confused and know with that its the right item. A single page with tons of models listed would be hard for a human to search through and would possibly be flagged as keyword stuffing.
bottom line - google panda has cut our business by 75% while we watch the same traffic goto non related sites. Please adjust your algorithm for eCommerce sites.
good afternoon honorable google admin
I want to ask why my blog http://ojelhtc.blogspot.com removed again and this event was the second time, and the reason was the same as spam, whereas the first occurrence is not proven, please return it back in my blog, thanks.
That is a good news. Well done !
some great ideas available here
Though Google has ranked us #1 for public records (deservedly so) for almost 14 years, Panda has decimated our internal pages-- even though we've done everything possible to keep up with the Panda updates.
We have been harmed so significantly and lost so much traffic, that even though we're a superb site that has had over 75 million visits over the years, we are going under. I expect we'll be able to keep the site up for a few more weeks, than have to shut it down.
I don't understand how this helps anyone. We've looked for and evaluated public record databases since 1996, wrote helpful descriptions, organized them, and added innovative search features and helpful guides to assist people in finding and understanding the information.
All for free.
Yet Google somehow feels that we should be forced out of business.
We can't fight you, and I'm tired of trying.
Tim Koster
SearchSystems.net
Thanks for your valuable information. I dont think so when penguin updates is on process. They re-change their algorithm to panda with 3.8 updates.
This is a great post from a blogger perspective. I am really tryng to up my game on my site and bring more and more value in the writing so am going to be asking those questions to myself.
My only beef with this article is the hint that moving bad content to another site is a possible good idea. Surely that's just polluting the web through another site!
Thanks,
Forest.
http://FrugalZeitgeist.com
@Amit
I want to discuss on following statement.
"Low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings."
Why should I like to discuss on this topic? Because, I have made big change on my website via narrow by search.
I want to give specific result to know more about it.
This is my category page: http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas
Left narrow by search section is creating accurate page for specific attribute products.
California Umbrella:
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/manufacturer-california-umbrella
From above page following page is accessible.
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-shape-search-octagonal/manufacturer-california-umbrella
Sunbrella Patio Umbrellas:
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-fabric-search-sunbrella
Similar story for this page. Following page can accessible from above page.
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-fabric-search-sunbrella/finish-search-wood
My website have 100+ categories, 11,000 products.
I have checked indexed pages in Google for my website.
https://www.google.com/search?q=info%3Awww.vistastores.com&pws=0&gl=US#hl=en&safe=off&pws=0&gl=US&q=site:www.vistastores.com&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=910893d99351c8f7&biw=1366&bih=547
It shows me 35,000+ crawled pages which are developed by left navigation section.
So, Will it consider as low quality pages? I want to improve my website performance without delete these pages.
Thanks for the additional information.
I generate loads of original content yet for a while now, i have had problems getting my Adense application approved. To be candid, i'm seriously worried by this. When i created the blog www.simplysamad.blogspot.com, i wasn't able to post much but now, i dedicate hours to expanding content yet whenever i apply, it gets rejected and they send me a message saying they Adsense cannot accept my kind of blog. I just checked my page views. I now do close to 3,000 page views everyday (on good days) and close to 2,000 page views (on not-so good days). In total, i have 242,551 page views yet it all seems to be a waste. i really need your help on this.
These are all great points and is exactly what SEO's should have been focusing on all along.
The gamers and black-hats need to be gone. Not only are they stealing the hard work of others, they are making the web a worse place. And they're ripping off their clients.
I personally don't believe for a second that anybody who's writing their own good content is getting punished because other people are stealing their content. If a site's sole content strategy is to quote liberally from other sources and add very little original input, it's not good content. There's nothing worse than searching for something and getting a result back that's simply an aggregator, or summary with a link to the original.
I have to say, it seems like a total crapshoot, a roll of the dice, that determines how well a site shows up in the SERPS. I have over 40 sites. About half I wrote millions of words for over the past 5 years. There are 3 sites that are doing well in Google. 3/40. I have no idea how to maintain those 3 and keep them in the top results... I just hope. That's all anyone can do. The changes to Google's algos have been so substantial over the years, that one can't make any real difference no matter WHAT is done to a site to 'help it'.
Links from big companies - that have their own best interests in mind, not helping others, is a ridiculous way to judge the worthiness of a site.
I've done everything right (meaning, no black hat) over the years, and still - no real love. If you have a business that is highly dependent on Google rankings - I think you are best to sell it - immediately for whatever you can get. Google is not a viable, consistent partner for small businesses. It just doesn't care what happens to mom and pop operations. It cares about the massive corps spending hundreds and thousands of thousands on ads.
Look at AimforAwesome.com. I have more "living in hawaii" and "moving to hawaii" articles than anyone out there, anywhere. There is nothing that is close. The site is fast, it's polished. There are giant articles on some of the best places to visit in the islands. It has great photos. Great design. I update it as much as I can. It has timely information. Guess what? I get 200 people a day there. That's a giant fail for Google, and for anyone that wants to move to or live in Hawaii that won't find the site. The info is free. I have a $5 ebook for sale which gives even more info. I'm providing massive value to visitors... and getting relatively little Google love at all.
Roll the dice or pay the price. Google is not a friend of any small site.
Thank for sharing what you think.
Hi Amit,
Thanks for giving us an insight into how Google sees webpages.
I have seen a number of examples of really poor webpages ranking really well. In fact, here is a complete blank page ranking on the first page http://www.elevatelocal.co.uk/blog/dear-mattcutts-how-compelling-is-a-blank-page-19077979
Does this update penalise the viral link building efforts through news sites, social media platforms, and blogs where there is a sudden traffic to any given website?
Is this change only occuring in certain countries, or worldwide?
Seems you've focused on improving the rankings of American owned sites and discounted non American owned sites rankings for search queries made in the U.S based on my research.
Is it true you include more sites and higher rankings in your index for American owned sites to U.S search searchers?
nice
Currently, Google searches are beginning to disappoint. Almost drifting towards Bing and Yahoo. What I'm now getting from Google Search is generic pablum from ponderous, old companies or websites and/or optimized disguised sales sites masquerad'g as legitimate worthwhile content. Time wasters! This happened noticeably after Penguin.
i have just heard about panda,what I learnt is that Panda promotes must famous/popular content leaving the unpopular/not so famous content behind.But this effects the quality.and how?Autheticity of the content is authorized into commercial streams.Like Wikipedia which is a most Famous unofficial bibble of whole world,but there is Britanica and many other Encyclopedias that are credible but not as famous as Wikipedia on internet.so the credibility is lost by popularizing.that hampers quality search.
Hi everybody, even one of my client website's (Japanese client ) keyword ranking went down suddenly after June 25th. Just recently i came to know that is because of Google recent update i.e. panda 3.8. My query is can we submit single article into multiple article submission websites. If this is not recommended then do we need to write multiple unique articles for article website submission list?
I've no idea if it's this update or one of the hundreds of others, but google results are now much poorer. I still go to google out of habbit, but for the first time in ten years I reguarly find myself having to switch to yahoo or bing to get the results I need. Google needs to take note or risk loosing market share. The biggest turn off for me is the 4-5 results appearing from one domain, it takes me back to the days of AltaVista in the late 90's. come on Google save yourself by admitting you've messed up your results and fixing it!
To me this is not Good, Google just ban the site with out notification, my blog was on top with 3pr and recently Google penguin updates had down my blog to 0, I wanna ask to Google: why they didn't inform me earlier if there is anything wrong, before ban my website Google even didn't warn me WHY. the answer is Now GOOGLE WANT MONEY THEY ARE NOT PENALIZING WEBSITE OF THOSE WHO ARE USING GOOGLE AD-WORDS. This is the main reason Google is doing such thing, there isn't much quality issue.
Irfan Mirza
Don't you think Social Signals - a popular Facebook page, for example - might also be a sign of quality content?
As many have pointed out, content creation is still one of the tough challenges on the web. I create a video but it gets lifted by someone else. I write a blog but someone else takes credit for it. So on and So forth.
I am not sure if Google can help much into this, if not the content structure. Meta attributes of the content specially "author" "time" etc are becoming very important in handling copyright.
One small way google may help (as it has done in some of the cases before) is by enforcing some of these meta details. It can rank content with such meta-details like "time" and "author" above the content which lack them. In that sense, wikipedia wins hands down because even for each paragraph it gives some references, which surely should be awarded by Google.
Do you have any idea if Panda affects example.com websites more than example.de websites?
Thanks for sharing these things with us.
Google Always want to Show the Exact Search As user wants and I that Panda is nothing but just An google steps to see more exact search results.
Panda Update on 24th July Penalized all Fake Website . and now thanx to google for displaying more exact results.
I have my company website and we showcase pages related to our products and their specification. Obviously my website pages are not blogs or articles on popular topics and therefore no one would really link back to my website.
Why does google then give so much importance to back linking? I think google should do away with using number of backlinks as a criteria for ranking pages.
Rajeev, I disagree. Only yesterday I was on a forum discussing the best monitors for designers and I linked to a product page on Amazon. If you sell products people want, have good images, descriptions, specifications, reviews etc. then people will talk about them and link to them.
i HAVE TAKEN YOUR ADVICE AND POSTED HERE http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/webmasters/crawling-indexing--ranking/0ZExKe4iisU HOWEVER I FEEL I AM WASTING MY TIME BUT oops caps, will be pleasantly surprised if you can look at the site and see my unfair demotion on june 25th. my site MEETS YOUR GUIDELINES! Yes we have some problems with links, which we are making good ground in removals, but please take a look, youve got the wrong guy........
I would like to comment on Newbies like ma that are trying to do things the right way. I think that if someone is new, and they can't write original content. They need to learn like I am.I don't want to copy content because I feel I will never succeed or be properly indexed if I don't create my own words. If I cannot create my own words I shouldn't be on here.
We ought to have a 'Google Mark' of quality to help distinguish good sites from bad. We're all plagued with information rubbish so rewarding sites that actually make an effort to meet quality standards would be great
Laura I agree about scrappers. I don't like the website hitchhikers
that ride on your domain name...everytime I put up a site, they have a new one with my domain like that www.domain generator info site. I always have to go to webmaster tools to get their link off my page.
Hello,
I have been running a blog site more than 6 years but i am not posting contents daily thus i always try to post quality content whenever i post. Is it affected by google's recent algorithm? It also, how can i know that my content is copied or not?
"homepage" of my site disappear from google search after some modification in page and keywords but innerpages are coming on firstpage of Google search as it is!! any highlight from expert?
"In recent months we’ve been especially focused on helping people find high-quality sites in Google’s search results." AND YET, Wilkipedia pages, the absolutely rubbish single-sentence ones, are still outranking specialist sites written by accomplished professionals who are experts in their field. The "love" between Google and Wikipedia, which has absolutely nothing to do with quality content, is sickening!
Is there even any point pouring hours, weeks, months and years of hard work into a website that is ALWAYS going to be buried beneath Wikipedia and the countless "lazy" sites that simply copy its open source text verbatim? Whatever happened to a level playing field where quality content really was rewarded?
Theres not much mention of website speeds? Surely thats important?
Yeah how does google know if the articles they scrape is from the competitors articles and post links to get the competitors' sites gets hammered
How about re-written articles that uniquely copied and from another source
does still considered scrape articles?
I want to know clearly the biggest change in Google algorithm.
Basicaly Amit is MLA, means mind less animal, who don't know what need to do for better search, as how only a program can distiguse the bad and good content...I am little bit scared that with his this activity lots of good sites will be down...
Yeah whatever !
Just throw away the entire web if you follow these guidelines.
Truth is Google is not capable to determine what is quality in terms of content.
All those signals can apply to blogs, news sites, catalogs, forums, etc.
Content Farms http://www.suskunsair.net were only guilty to make a buck on content, which is the forbidden fruit. Not fair they were the only ones on the spotlight.
Google wants you to play by the rules but they don't play by the rules .
Remember when they were caught buying links for chrome? Do as we say not as we do
Everything you read in forums about quality content is nonsense. Google doesn't care about your content in less of course it is an area they want to be in, and then of course no one will ever find your content in search. Google is EVIL
It is clear to me that google doesn't care about quality content and user experience improvement.
For me these updates are pieces of BS because everybody I know who have fresh and good content in their blogs have been penalized in their rankings.
Let's use Bing and Yahoo as Search Engines and Facebook to make money.
My site has been duplicated somewhere on the web too and I also filed a DMCA report. I have a blog since 2006 about Barcelona, pictures and good info. It has had excellent results. I had a PR5 for years. It is in English which has almost no competition with similar sites and I never spam. I don't want to sound conceited or something but I think it is a helpful site. Well, after your updates, every single travel site selling stuff and giving nothing in return is skyrocketing in your search engine results. I am starting to think that it is good for Google that those get better results. They are making the big money in Barcelona, not bloggers!
What I find really funny is that the person hogging no.1 position for a keyword phase in my niche has an about page that reads "This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself......"
It is no.1 because of the network of sites that link to it, all using the same theme, all with the same backlink profiles from blogs, free directories and social sites. By studying this site I am slowly learning how easy it is to manipulate Google. Impressive. Oh, this site is also a re-write of other sites, and English is not the webmasters first language either.
productivity software
Post a Comment