Panda 2.2 Confirmed Live: My Site is Decimated! What Now?

[dp40oz]

Panda 2.2 was confirmed live today Panda 2.2 Confirmed and my best website has been totally destroyed. I personally feel its incredibly harsh but what can I do. I went from ranking page 1 on about 200 terms to being ranked no higher then #629 for any of those terms. What happened to -50 penalty I mean jesus! Regardless, im not sure what to do now. Not so much with this website but moving forward. I have about 15 other sites all similar that didn't get penalized. I feel pretty confused as to why this site took the hit and the others didn't which makes me not know how to go about future sites. How bout you guys?

[JSProjects]

Pretty awful that we're all basically at the mercy of Google, isn't it?

Was there anything out of the ordinary with the site that was hit? Sometimes it can take just a handful of questionable backlinks to put a site on Google's radar.

[retsek]

Well my best website got a huge boost yesterday. So i'm not complaining lol.
Two others seemed to have been pounded.

I now need analyze the differences between them since all these have the same quality of content, But different backlinking types and speed of backlinking.

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by JSProjects

Pretty awful that we're all basically at the mercy of Google, isn't it?

Was there anything out of the ordinary with the site that was hit? Sometimes it can take just a handful of questionable backlinks to put a site on Google's radar.

Originally Posted by retsek

Well my best website got a huge boost yesterday. So i'm not complaining lol.
Two others seemed to have been pounded.

I now need analyze the differences between them since all these have the same quality of content, But different backlinking types and speed of backlinking.

I could be wrong but from what ive read most experts don't seem to think that Panda really looks at backlinks. Its more of an on-page quality thing. I'll really have to take a look at my site but what worries me is all my sites are very similar quality wise and setup.

[retsek]

mmm..I was just reading up on it as well.

I read Google regular checks for hidden text. The two of my sites that were affected used a theme with a header image. It's displayed using <a href="link">text</a>, but that class has a -9999px text-indent and it just shows a clickable header logo.
Would that count as hidden text, anybody?

[blueorca17]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

Panda 2.2 was confirmed live today Panda 2.2 Confirmed and my best website has been totally destroyed. I personally feel its incredibly harsh but what can I do. I went from ranking page 1 on about 200 terms to being ranked no higher then #629 for any of those terms. What happened to -50 penalty I mean jesus! Regardless, im not sure what to do now. Not so much with this website but moving forward. I have about 15 other sites all similar that didn't get penalized. I feel pretty confused as to why this site took the hit and the others didn't which makes me not know how to go about future sites. How bout you guys?

Just suck it up and try something else. Obviously what you did with these other sites didn't work. Now you just need to test and find something that does.

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by blueorca17

Just suck it up and try something else. Obviously what you did with these other sites didn't work. Now you just need to test and find something that does.

But thats not true. 15 other sites are just fine. It was just this one site that took the hit. Funny enough I always felt this was my most "quality" site because my other ones are very thin 3-5 pages max. Maybe thats the future. I love the authority site model though but why risk loosing everything. I firmly believe these Panda site wide penalties will lead webmasters to re-think making huge sites if they risk every page getting penalized. It'll lead to tons of thin sites clogging the ranks exactly what Google doesn't really want.

[Cosmit]

Originally Posted by retsek

mmm..I was just reading up on it as well.

I read Google regular checks for hidden text. The two of my sites that were affected used a theme with a header image. It's displayed using <a href="link">text</a>, but that class has a -9999px text-indent and it just shows a clickable header logo.
Would that count as hidden text, anybody?

Don't risk it. Why can't you just place the div inside the anchor?

<a href="#"><div id="logo" class="logo"></a>

Would work fine.

[RevSEO]

Originally Posted by retsek

mmm..I was just reading up on it as well.

I read Google regular checks for hidden text. The two of my sites that were affected used a theme with a header image. It's displayed using <a href="link">text</a>, but that class has a -9999px text-indent and it just shows a clickable header logo.
Would that count as hidden text, anybody?

Ya it would, don't try sneaky tricks to stuff keywords on your page. Google knows them all and there's no real excuse for doing stuff like that. Chances are you didn't really need that keyword there in the first place.

[retsek]

Originally Posted by RevSEO

Ya it would, don't try sneaky tricks to stuff keywords on your page. Google knows them all and there's no real excuse for doing stuff like that. Chances are you didn't really need that keyword there in the first place.

This is no sneaky trick. Many Wordress themes that make use a logo image use this css technique to make the logo clickable.

An example is Mashable. Look at their logo image Social Media News and Web Tips. They have -3000 text indent.

[Carl Brown]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

I could be wrong but from what ive read most experts don't seem to think that Panda really looks at backlinks. Its more of an on-page quality thing. I'll really have to take a look at my site but what worries me is all my sites are very similar quality wise and setup.

I USED to think Google was smart and that they want quality. I've been "playing" with one site to see what works and what doesn't. I THOUGHT my site was good quality (as far as content and on page seo), but apparently Google doesn't think so. I rank at #175 for a particular keyword. I've done content stuff that has gotten me to #50, but what I have now is stable at #175. My domain has the keyword. My title is the keyword. I had 1.9% keyword density. My article on the homepage is 400 words. My site is about 4 months old and I am frustrated.

Now, about my competitor:

His domain is something like (but not this exactly), i6duf.com
His front page is UNREADABLE gibberish 250 words with the keyword sprinkled throughout the "article". His keyword density is 9%. His site has just the one page (mine has about 30). His site is almost exactly the same age as mine (just a little older). He has no advertising so I don't understand the point. He has no description or keyword tags. He has 5 low quality and unrelated backlinks

And he's in position #5 for "My" keyword while I sit on position #175!


This site also ranks ahead of my content rich site:

Apr 22, 2011 ... Website hinavaking.co.cc has been successfully installed on server. Please delete file "default.php" from public_html folder and upload your ...

[GeorgR.]

Panda 2.2 was confirmed live today Panda 2.2 Confirmed and my best website has been totally destroyed

So is your "best" website a scraper site then? Kind of..weak..

Panda is supposedly only targeting scraper sites. You know, those sites you can buy for $20 from DP forum. If you still operate such sites...uhm..maybe it's time to wake up.

[FreeMeal]

my sites all done badly in the SERP's before Panda, and they are doing badly after... i suppose I should be grateful they're consistent.

[Jon Potts]

Originally Posted by FreeMeal

my sites all done badly in the SERP's before Panda, and they are doing badly after... i suppose I should be grateful they're consistent.

hahaha this post pretty much sums up what most people tell me about Panda.

[Amenda Jessera]

Well, for me, the sites to which I had done contextual link building are strong and even higher on ranks, but the sites to which I had done only heavy profile link building (Angela/Paul) and SB - the ranks vanished, So, I think, PANDA - value more CONTEXTUAL link building, Isn't?

[guarino1235]

dang... panda oh panda...

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

Panda 2.2 was confirmed live today Panda 2.2 Confirmed and my best website has been totally destroyed. I personally feel its incredibly harsh but what can I do. I went from ranking page 1 on about 200 terms to being ranked no higher then #629 for any of those terms. What happened to -50 penalty I mean jesus! Regardless, im not sure what to do now. Not so much with this website but moving forward. I have about 15 other sites all similar that didn't get penalized. I feel pretty confused as to why this site took the hit and the others didn't which makes me not know how to go about future sites. How bout you guys?

Me too, but mine was on June 6-7th. It was also one of my better sites. 4 years old, ranked #5 for a phrase that gets 50,000 exact monthly searches, about 40 posts, 4000 backlinks on YSE. All 40 posts hand written by me. No duplicate content, no scraped content, no AdSense. God knows what Google was thinking.

If there was anything fishy at all, it was the fact that I had 2 more sites in the same niche targeting 2 different keywords and the homepages of all 3 looked similar in that all of them reviewed the same 3 products. None of my sites were moved by Panda 1.0 (except Ezine articles and an ArticlesBase article). This was the only one that moved by what I thought was Panda 2. But apparently there was NO Panda on June 7th. It was today/y'day!

So I wonder what hit me! I'm thinking about submitting a reconsideration request! If you and I can figure out what was wrong with our sites we could fix them; but they were our better sites and hardly anything wrong with them. So I don't know what to fix.

Something I did notice is that when I search for the site by the domain name, like mysitedomainname without the .com on Google search, it gets listed with Category pages listed below like in Amazon where it says Books, Videos, Electronics etc.

I don't know what that means!

If anybody's interested, I wrote more about it on this post

[strategic seo services]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

Panda 2.2 was confirmed live today Panda 2.2 Confirmed and my best website has been totally destroyed. I personally feel its incredibly harsh but what can I do. I went from ranking page 1 on about 200 terms to being ranked no higher then #629 for any of those terms. What happened to -50 penalty I mean jesus! Regardless, im not sure what to do now. Not so much with this website but moving forward. I have about 15 other sites all similar that didn't get penalized. I feel pretty confused as to why this site took the hit and the others didn't which makes me not know how to go about future sites. How bout you guys?

Ouch, that's harsh. Try removing any duplicate content from your site. Also, make sure your site is not a link farm. Hope that helps.

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by FreeMeal

my sites all done badly in the SERP's before Panda, and they are doing badly after... i suppose I should be grateful they're consistent.

Let us know when you launch a WSO on SEO. You're da man

[jpr106]

Yeh check your content on your site is over 400 words, totally unique and of high quality.

Panda really is looking to weed out scraped content sites. Try updating your blog with fresh, new content it and begin backlinking again for a few weeks.

It's better than doing nothing.

[Carl Brown]

Originally Posted by jpr106

Yeh check your content on your site is over 400 words, totally unique and of high quality.

Panda really is looking to weed out scraped content sites. Try updating your blog with fresh, new content it and begin backlinking again for a few weeks.

It's better than doing nothing.

Not true according to the examples I've given. Like I said, MY site has original, unique, and real content while the guy occupying the #5 position is 250 words of obviously spun and completely meaningless content. There are several similar examples I can show you.

I've updated my experimental page again with 250 words of content with the same keyword density as that competitor (9%) and I will wait a week or so to see what happens with this change.

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by Carl Brown

I've updated my experimental page again with 250 words of content with the same keyword density as that competitor (9%) and I will wait a week or so to see what happens with this change.

I personally wouldn't recommend that!

I think what we're seeing right now is something very transitional until Google sorts things out. You don't want a black mark of any kind on your site in the extremely unlikely event that your site happens to go through a manual review or something. If that happens, even if you take off your 'garbage piece', it'll take a while for the penalty to wear off!

May be Panda missed that site and it will catch it the next round which will be in about 4-6 weeks (or even less).

Especially at this time point I just wouldn't do anything I wouldn't normally do!

Ultimately, the good guys always win

[LiamP]

@Chucky and @dp40oz

Is it possible somebody else has scraped your content and Google has mistakenly marked the scraped version as the original? Thus penalising you under Panda?

This scenario might explain why your best/biggest site is doing the worst. The best/biggest content being more likely to be a target for scrapers.

And it wouldn't be the first time Google has got confused about the original source of content, that's for sure.

[Oggyoi]

Originally Posted by Chucky

I personally wouldn't recommend that!


May be Panda missed that site and it will catch it the next round which will be in about 4-6 weeks (or even less).

Especially at this time point I just wouldn't do anything I wouldn't normally do!

Ultimately, the good guys always win

I'd say the same, it's unlikely Google will catch every single site within a few hours of each other.
Your competition may wake up today to find his site on page 99 or something.

[Carl Brown]

I'm just checking keyword density. SOMETHING is working for him. Mine is better in EVERY way, but my keyword density was 1.9% His was/is 9%. I shortened my article from over 400 words to 250 like his, matched his keyword density, but at least my article is a real, readable article. I believe content plays a far more important role than most think. I want to know what those factors are.

Like I said, there is also a dead site with NO CONTENT that is far ahead of me and the hosting company has this on this person's site:

Apr 22, 2011 ... Website hinavaking.co.cc has been successfully installed on server. Please delete file "default.php" from public_html folder and upload your ...

Now I have no idea what was on this site before, but how is THIS site ranking ahead of anybody for any keyword?

[ttomp13]

If your site is legit...

If your content is unique, and your rankings went south, then you have all
the reason to complain. This happened to my friend who figured out that
someone was actually scraping his content, and Google saw the scraper site
as being the original. This could be what is happening to many of you.

If your site is a scraper...

Stop complaining, and build a unique website. It's really not that difficult,
(writing 1 article a day.) 1 article a day for a month can bring you in about
$50 - $100 a month on a good niche.

[Jute]

Hi all!

If you site is a wordpress site make sure to block the spiders from you plugin folder....

Cheers

[abhibh]

Same thins happened to me i went from Page 2 to nowhere and now after 1 month of constant link building and fresh content i am back to Page 4 (bouncing between page 3 - 4)

- What i did was write fresh content. I didn't even higher a write just wrote what i felt should be decent enough to be read with keyword in the post atleast 3 times.

- 3 Tiered Profile links

- Went on fiverr and ordered contextual links on blog posts.

[Google.me]

Maybe Google panda is really focusing on reverse ip to find spammed websites? It might be best to know what neighbor hoods your websites ip is associated with these days.

[derekwong28]

I am also seeing that Panda is extremely good for lower quality thin affiliate sites. After a lull of 6 months, my spammy Amazon affiliate sites started making money again and I just had the best month with Amazon.

[scrapgirl42]

Originally Posted by Jute

Hi all!

If you site is a wordpress site make sure to block the spiders from you plugin folder....

Cheers

How do you do that?

[JustSomeWarrior]

This just goes to show that running sites like this is similar to the stock market and you need to diversify your portfolio!

Having a number of different types of sites with different types of content, back link strategies, and monetization is essential.

[JackPowers]

Don't change your site and expect it to come back asap.

Panda is not an algoritmic change but a 'script' they run once in a while. That unfortunately means that if you were punished, you will stay punished until they run the next batch.

[JustSomeWarrior]

I thought google doesn't "punish" you for back link strategies?

The thought was that it would become trivial for competitors to get your site "punished" and get you out of the top 10... so they take away points but no penalty.

That sound right?

[Rollmodl]

I see alot of misinformation on Panda (backlinks, etc.). Video on Panda

How Google's Panda Update Changed SEO Best Practices Forever - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

[semrawut]

maybe just wait the Full Version of Panda.... i heard from someone said that this Panda still in Beta Version ..

CMIIW

[semrawut]

Im sorry.. Double Post

[Will Leighton]

I have a new site, with good quality unique content being placed on the site every week, well SEO'd for keyword and has a backlinking campaign in place.

Fairly new, only 2 months old, climbed and settled at page 2 for about 3 weeks , with little fluctuations probably between 19-23. The panda update hits and for the past 2 weeks, its been dancing all over, from 20-35, on a steady decline.

Hopefully it'll bounce back, no idea why it decrease its ranking after Panda though, my site is apparently exactly what Google wants! Still chasing a page one ranking.

[jyotikajoe]

Google Panda affects lots my site's and one of my friend's site's also, ranking gone down..and her sites was with quality content but still, I don't know Y ?

[heavyjay]

Originally Posted by Rollmodl

I see alot of misinformation on Panda (backlinks, etc.). Video on Panda

How Google's Panda Update Changed SEO Best Practices Forever - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

I thought his example of a motorcycle part was kind of ridiculous. If I'm looking for a bike part, all I want to know is where I can buy it and how much it costs. Several paragraphs of prose just gets in the way of what I'm trying to find out.

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by Rollmodl

I see alot of misinformation on Panda (backlinks, etc.). Video on Panda

How Google's Panda Update Changed SEO Best Practices Forever - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

I don't think this video is accurate at all. Panda does not take site design into account the way its describe here nor does it take bounce rate into account. This is just BS. A high bounce rate can either mean people didn't like the site or they found exactly what they wanted right away. Google would never try to determine which one of these events happened.

[Will Leighton]

Wow my site is actually all over the place today, over the course of 4 or so hours, its danced from 32 to 25 to 30 to 31 and now back to 25.

[heavyjay]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

I don't think this video is accurate at all. Panda does not take site design into account the way its describe here nor does it take bounce rate into account. This is just BS. A high bounce rate can either mean people didn't like the site or they found exactly what they wanted right away. Google would never try to determine which one of these events happened.

The video did kind of contradict a lot of what we've been hearing.
I believe he said good content isn't enough. Maybe I heard wrong, but I thought Panda was all about good content.

[ElectronPlumber]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

Panda 2.2 was confirmed live today Panda 2.2 Confirmed and my best website has been totally destroyed. I personally feel its incredibly harsh but what can I do. I went from ranking page 1 on about 200 terms to being ranked no higher then #629 for any of those terms. What happened to -50 penalty I mean jesus! Regardless, im not sure what to do now. Not so much with this website but moving forward. I have about 15 other sites all similar that didn't get penalized. I feel pretty confused as to why this site took the hit and the others didn't which makes me not know how to go about future sites. How bout you guys?

Have you considered the possibility that it has nothing to do specifically with the Panda update? You say your sites are all similar and since Google is actually a machine, it should treat them all similarly.

I suspect you have received a manual or algorithmic penalty on that one site and might be able to pull it out of the dumpster with the right effort. #1 to #10 or #20 is a Panda update hit. #1 to #651 is a penalty, NOT a Panda update problem.

I've written an FAQ with a list of stuff you might want to check to see if you've crossed a line and Google noticed: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...deindexed.html

[mnlewis]

@ dp40oz Are you able to find any of your inner pages?

Im looking on the bright side and Im thinking it may not be Panda update, but I do think something is going on. I have a site where traffic dropped about 80% last week. But with this site it usually gets hit 1-2 times a year and disappears from Google except for a few of my inner pages. But it usually comes back within a few weeks, stronger than ever. Or the reason my site disappeared also is because I build too many backlinks at once. So that can be another reason why my site disappeared.

My suggestion is to take the wait and see approach. Continue adding pages, backlinks whatever you do to get traffic. Maybe even tweak your site a bit and Im sure it will be back soon.

[guitarjosh]

Originally Posted by Will Leighton

I have a new site, with good quality unique content being placed on the site every week, well SEO'd for keyword and has a backlinking campaign in place.

Fairly new, only 2 months old, climbed and settled at page 2 for about 3 weeks , with little fluctuations probably between 19-23. The panda update hits and for the past 2 weeks, its been dancing all over, from 20-35, on a steady decline.

Hopefully it'll bounce back, no idea why it decrease its ranking after Panda though, my site is apparently exactly what Google wants! Still chasing a page one ranking.

I doubt panda has anything to do with this. That's pretty normal behavior for such a new site.

[Will Leighton]

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

I doubt panda has anything to do with this. That's pretty normal behavior for such a new site.

How long from experience is the rough time it takes to settle so I can focus on climbing the rankings?

[LucySands]

add one new page and re-submit a new sitemap via Google Webmaster Tools

[guitarjosh]

Originally Posted by Will Leighton

How long from experience is the rough time it takes to settle so I can focus on climbing the rankings?

Always different. I have sites that do this for a week and come back and I've had sites that stayed down for 3 months and then all at once, just jump. My sites always seem to take about 9 months to really settle and stay consistent.

[dagaul101]

The purpose of Panda is to get web admins to create sites that are targetted at users, and to bring unique content to the web rather than duplicates, or re-hashed duplicates, Google wants every one to have a professional presence, meaning unique content and quality backlinks