For All Those Hit Hard From June 6th-June 10th

[dp40oz]

After seeing all the threads posted its no coincidence that many people have been hit hard in the last few days. Basically the point of this thread is to gather info from the people who were hit and see if we can figure out whats going on.

My Facts:

- I have 15 websites
- Only one of my websites was hit. It was my top earning website and has basically been completely knocked out. I had over 200 page one rankings from 20 pages of unique content.
- It was in an information and education niche with some high search counts
- I had 20 pages of unique content and about 40 pages of syndicated articles from article ranks.
- I had done very aggressive link building for this website for about 3 months hitting with xrumer, scrapebox, pretty much everything under the sun. I had mellowed out the last 2 months, just using article ranks, BMR and some se-nuke but no Xrumer, blog comments for a few months.
- All of my other websites have seen the same treatment and are still fine. They are "thinner" sites though just 2-3 pages but all had syndicated articles on them as well. Some sites had only 2 pages of totally unique content and 100 pages of syndicated articles and are still ranking well.
- Sometimes at about midnight my site will show up in the serps for about 10 minutes and then poof gone again. I also get a few drips of traffic from my major keywords which means that some servers still have my site ranking somewhere in the US. Mind you this is very minimal compared to what I was getting. For a search term that would normally get 100 views a day I am getting maybe 3-4, but they are coming from the exact search term.

My Penalty:

- Site lost all its rankings and my major pages where links were built can only be found deep into the 500-900's and not for their normal search terms. They rank but for search terms they weren't optimized for.
- The only pages I have that break the top 500 are the pages that didn't see much link building.
- The pages that are ranking in the 500-800's just seem to be ranking for the wrong search terms which strikes my as odd.

My Thoughts:

Is this panda 2.2?
I don't think so personally. The penalty is too stiff for too many sites. Ive heard so many sites having very similar stories and it just seems way too harsh of a penalty. Its not like I went from #3 to number #87. I went from #3 to nowhere to be found for almost all terms. I also don't think the timetable for Panda 2.2 has come yet from what Matt Cutts has said.

What happened?
Is Google possibly cleaning up servers, transferring things or just doing major shuffles? Thats I guess what my hope is. The fact that this was my only site affected and that so many other people have had issues last week lends me to believe this could just be a Google glitch of sorts. But then again it may be a penalty.

I for one can suck up this loss. I can let it ride out for a month see if things change. The site earned well but I have others doing well and it wasn't making so much that I can't live with moving on. I just don't like not knowing what happened at all. It seems so arbitrary. I would love to hear the specifics and thoughts from other people in a similar boat.

[WealthWithin]

I'm seeing a similar pattern. The sites I have with many pages were affected. A site which had top 5 rankings for 1 yr completely lost rankings. Sites with less than 10 pages are improved or not affected.

I doubt this has anything to do with links, as all the sites I have, get a similar sort of a link graph.

All I can think for now is, remove or merge any content pages with closely matching content.

Google definitely did a significant algorithm change during last week.

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by WealthWithin

I'm seeing a similar pattern. The sites I have with many pages were affected. A site which had top 5 rankings for 1 yr completely lost rankings. Sites with less than 10 pages are improved or not affected.

I doubt this has anything to do with links, as all the sites I have, get a similar sort of a link graph.

All I can think for now is, remove or merge any content pages with closely matching content.

Google definitely did a significant algorithm change during last week.

Interesting point. My site for example had a lot of pages with similar titles, for example.

Foot fungus in men
foot fungus in women
foot fungus in children
dogs with foot fungus

Stuff like that. Do you think that may have been a big contributor. My other sites do have similar page titles but not as many.

[WealthWithin]

I think it's too early to jump into a conclusion.

I have few sites that had wild ranking fluctuations during past few days. (From #53 to #3 to #53 to #3). Google hasn't issued an official statement yet (They usually do after a significant change). So I'm guessing they're still testing whatever is going on.

I would hold on to the sites for another few weeks before making any significant changes.

[craft]

This happened to me also. After 6 months in this game I was finally getting to the top of Google for various keywords. I started to make money for the first time and was ecstatic.

6th-10th rankings gone
11th-14th rankings return
15th-17th rankings gone
18th-21st rankings return
22nd-24th(now) rankings gone!

When I say rankings gone I mean somewhere from index page 36 to 80.

I have been doing so much reading my head hurts trying to figure this out. I am in the same boat as dp40oz.

[rvdp]

I lost one site (my only one so far) which had a #2 ranking. The main reason for me to think these are not the "final Panda 2.2 rankings", is simply the fact that when I look at the SERPS for my niche and a couple of others I have been observing for a while, I see sites have climbed their way up which are absolutely lower value thean the ones that disappeared. For example, the #2 that replaced my site is an extremely thin affiliate with nothing but syndicated content and copied testimonials.

[Jeremy Banks]

I have been making more and more each day since June 5th, but yes some of my sites were affected as well. My thoughts?

Google is always crapping on your sites
It seems no matter what google will take one of my top earning sites and knock it down the 2nd page. Out of my 30-40 sites I always have to pull one of my top earners out of the sandbox.

[John Dales]

I think the cause of the drop of the OP's site is the automation especially the part that was done by Scrapebox and Xrumer.

We had several websites blogs in several free blogging platforms such as Wordpress, Blogspot, Weebly, Typepad. Each blog contains only 1 article that was spun from a unique 500-word seed article. Now, we experimented blasting our blogspot.com site with 10,000 profile links using Xrumer and we did 200 profile links to our Weebly site on a manual basis. The blogspot site shoot up from No. 12 to No. 4 in the rankings and the Weebly site crawled from No. 14 to No.11. However, after a few days, our Blogspot site is nowhere to be seen in the Top 800 while our Weebly continued to crawl upwards and it is now sitting strongly at No. 7 for the same Keyword.

It has been several days now and our Blogspot site is still nowhere in the Top 800 and I think it will not regain its ranking.

I think Google is now looking very closely at links which are built in an automated fashion.

[bigpoppa3]

I'm relatively new to the IM world but I've suffered a hit also. I have 70 sites (a loose combination of adsense, amazon and clickbank sites) which really started making money in May. I noticed a problem in my sites which had been averaging 300-450 visitors a day since the first part of June but dropped to 12 since June 17th. Yesterday I check my adsense account and noticed by average for daily page views and income (for all my sites) experienced a 50% drop since the June 17th.

Now I have to figure I what Google wants so I can feed that monster what it wants!

[coronaborcalis]

Here is the stat that I took from wp-stat




In that stat you can see that my site gets back to SERP on 17 June after the dooms day on 6 june. What I did is just copy the technique from warriors who gets hit from 6 June and get back after a couple of days. The technique is send reconsideration letter to google but make sure before you do this your sites have to follow all webmaster guideline that provide by google.

Cheers

Rian

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by coronaborcalis

Here is the stat that I took from wp-stat




In that stat you can see that my site gets back to SERP on 17 June after the dooms day on 6 june. What I did is just copy the technique from warriors who gets hit from 6 June and get back after a couple of days. The technique is send reconsideration letter to google but make sure before you do this your sites have to follow all webmaster guideline that provide by google.

Cheers

Rian

Their webmaster guidelines are a joke! They are vague and leave every site open for them to interpret anyway they'd like. If they wanted to they could find apple.com, facebook.com or wikipedia in violation of their webmaster guidelines. Its the most useless guide ive ever read.

[coronaborcalis]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

Their webmaster guidelines are a joke! They are vague and leave every site open for them to interpret anyway they'd like. If they wanted to they could find apple.com, facebook.com or wikipedia in violation of their webmaster guidelines. Its the most useless guide ive ever read.

Lol, how can you say that mate? I don't see any joke in this google guidelines, check it out.

https://www.google.com/support/webma...er=35769&hl=en

Even if the guidelines contain with crappy jokes we have to admit that google provides us with targeted traffic that can generate $$ for us, just feed google like what they want and $$ will comes

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Banks

Google is always crapping on your sites

Google is always crapping on sites because the internet and
search results are dynamic.

I wish this panda-monium would stop. It's just filling up the WF
with nonsense. Like I predicted, it caused everybody who drops
to now claim the big bad voodoo panda.

Funny thing, I wonder what the corresponding number of people
who went up are claiming? I guess those people don't populate
forums.

Take responsibility of your own sites.

(Note: not aimed at Mr. Banks)

Paul

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by coronaborcalis

Lol, how can you say that mate? I don't see any joke in this google guidelines, check it out.

https://www.google.com/support/webma...er=35769&hl=en

Even if the guidelines contain with crappy jokes we have to admit that google provides us with targeted traffic that can generate $$ for us, just feed google like what they want and $$ will comes

Sorry I was referring to these Panda guidelines because we all assume we've followed the Webmaster guidelines. These are the most subjective guidelines ive ever seen. Not only that, they are having a robot be the one deciding these things. Its ridiculous. Google is catching more quality sites in their Panda net then non-quality sites and this WILL hurt them in the end. Panda has been an awful business move and horrible PR mess.

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?

[paulgl]

"Panda" guidelines are nothing new. Same old webmaster guidelines.
Those that listened, followed, do not fear the big bad google.

There is nothing new in panda. Just maybe a more militant
enforcement of old guidelines.

So many people have come to this forum and flatly stated:
"I don't care what google says...."

Good. Don't. Go in peace.

Paul

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by paulgl

"Panda" guidelines are nothing new. Same old webmaster guidelines.
Those that listened, followed, do not fear the big bad google.

There is nothing new in panda. Just maybe a more militant
enforcement of old guidelines.

So many people have come to this forum and flatly stated:
"I don't care what google says...."

Good. Don't. Go in peace.

Paul

Paul I respect that you play by the rules and follow them to a tee. The problem with Panda is that its not only punishing those breaking the rules but its punishing those who aren't and the punishments are beyond harsh. 500-700 place ranking drops across every page of an entire website is excessive. Just because Google runs the show doesn't mean every move they make is correct.

[Fernando Veloso]

It's a cycle - as usual.

Google knocks down sites cause it's their method. It's usual, happens often and it's a good way to keep folks wondering what happened.

I tell you in all honestly what I think: even if you do the best SEO around, your sites will be hammered: one update or the other.

It's cyclic. And random too. Thats why everyone is so confused. Guess what?? Thats the whole IDEA!!!!
Thats why most of us use a similar 33/33/33 rule:

33% this technique
33% that technique
33% other technique

and so on.

This way when the freaking hammer drops, you have 1/3 (or more) of them safe. But if you still want to follow updates/trends/mouse traps... be my guest. It's insane the amount of people discussing this everyday, crossing data (and proving Google kills random sites!!!) and no one see the big picture.

Geeessh.

[rvdp]

Originally Posted by paulgl

"Panda" guidelines are nothing new. Same old webmaster guidelines.
Those that listened, followed, do not fear the big bad google.

There is nothing new in panda. Just maybe a more militant
enforcement of old guidelines.

So many people have come to this forum and flatly stated:
"I don't care what google says...."

Good. Don't. Go in peace.

Paul

Every. Single. Time. You keep saying nothing has changed but fail to explain why quality sites are disappearing without good reason. More militant enforcement you say? Then what rule(s) exactly are being enforced beacause as far as I can tell, the sites we're talking about follow them practically all, which is one of the reasons they ranked well in the first place.

[Fernando Veloso]

Originally Posted by rvdp

Every. Single. Time. You keep saying nothing has changed but fail to explain why quality sites are disappearing without good reason. More militant enforcement you say? Then what rule(s) exactly are being enforced beacause as far as I can tell, the sites we're talking about follow them practically all, which is one of the reasons they ranked well in the first place.

Read my post above.

If a rule was clear (or even followed), everyone would have #1 sites.

You people need to wake up.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Read my post above.

If a rule was clear (or even followed), everyone would have #1 sites.

Man is that on heck of a quote!

Paul

[Fernando Veloso]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Man is that on heck of a quote!

Paul

And truthful.

Google is like a crazy drunk man with a gun on his hands: it shoots everywhere, everytime. No one is safe.

Sad but true.

[2stroke]

Originally Posted by coronaborcalis

Here is the stat that I took from wp-stat




In that stat you can see that my site gets back to SERP on 17 June after the dooms day on 6 june. What I did is just copy the technique from warriors who gets hit from 6 June and get back after a couple of days. The technique is send reconsideration letter to google but make sure before you do this your sites have to follow all webmaster guideline that provide by google.

Cheers

Rian

Don't get too comfy, My site disappeared from the first page, I did the reconsideration request, they sent the email saying it wasn't manually removed. My site climbed back to first page for a couple days, then dropped to the second page for a few days then disappeared again now for 3 days.

Something is getting adjusted somewhere, and apparently it's not over yet.

[Jeremy Banks]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Google is always crapping on sites because the internet and
search results are dynamic.

I wish this panda-monium would stop. It's just filling up the WF
with nonsense. Like I predicted, it caused everybody who drops
to now claim the big bad voodoo panda.


Paul

Too many people believe corelations are grounds for hard proof and fact when in reality there could be (and usually are) 100s of other factors involved. I am not on the panda wagon, google changes things on a daily basis. If everyone's sites on increased in rankings then everyone would be tied for first.

The rules haven't changed. Add original content, get links from quality sources and have a diversified link portfolio. If your site drops in rankings add more content and get more links.

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

It's a cycle - as usual.

Google knocks down sites cause it's their method. It's usual, happens often and it's a good way to keep folks wondering what happened.

I tell you in all honestly what I think: even if you do the best SEO around, your sites will be hammered: one update or the other.

It's cyclic. And random too. Thats why everyone is so confused. Guess what?? Thats the whole IDEA!!!!
Thats why most of us use a similar 33/33/33 rule:

33% this technique
33% that technique
33% other technique

and so on.

This way when the freaking hammer drops, you have 1/3 (or more) of them safe. But if you still want to follow updates/trends/mouse traps... be my guest. It's insane the amount of people discussing this everyday, crossing data (and proving Google kills random sites!!!) and no one see the big picture.

Geeessh.

Some people see the bug picture, the ones making the money . I diversify like a mofo. Diversify types of sites ( niche, micro niche, authority), monetization methods and link building tactics

[thebitbotdotcom]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Banks

I have been making more and more each day since June 5th, but yes some of my sites were affected as well. My thoughts?

Google is always crapping on your sites
It seems no matter what google will take one of my top earning sites and knock it down the 2nd page. Out of my 30-40 sites I always have to pull one of my top earners out of the sandbox.

Manual review. They must have hired an army...

[thebitbotdotcom]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

It's a cycle - as usual.

Google knocks down sites cause it's their method. It's usual, happens often and it's a good way to keep folks wondering what happened.

I tell you in all honestly what I think: even if you do the best SEO around, your sites will be hammered: one update or the other.

It's cyclic. And random too. Thats why everyone is so confused. Guess what?? Thats the whole IDEA!!!!
Thats why most of us use a similar 33/33/33 rule:

33% this technique
33% that technique
33% other technique

and so on.

This way when the freaking hammer drops, you have 1/3 (or more) of them safe. But if you still want to follow updates/trends/mouse traps... be my guest. It's insane the amount of people discussing this everyday, crossing data (and proving Google kills random sites!!!) and no one see the big picture.

Geeessh.

or...33.3% long-tail
.....33.3% long-tail
.....33.3% long-tail

i.e. never put your keywords into one basket.

Build your business on long tail keywords in addition to short-tail...

short-tail = profits
long-tail = stability