Are you considering "quitting" after Google panda update?

[yeshuaisiam]

I'm considering quitting. I wrote very high quality articles on a PERSONAL domain that is 11 years old. Usually they were 600 words minimum, and a daily update & comments section. I did put up fresh content 5 times a week writing a 600 word article in the same theme of my website on a daily workday basis. These articles contained an excellent amount of variation, were not spun, and had absolutely no punctuation or spelling errors. All original, all fresh.

I was making around $500 a month on adsense monthly. I had an approx 10% (click).

After the Google Panda update on the 13-14th of October, my visits sank dramatically. I lost approximately 66% of my traffic.

I also somehow lost my click ratio which does not make any sense. Traffic can die down but you'd expect the click ratio to remain. Also the clicks are paying SQUAT now.

So my $17 dollar days on average just made .70 cents yesterday for the entire day. Today at 8:00am, I am already up to .71 cents.

Either I'm going crazy or Google is becoming a POS way to make money online and has gone the way of Ehow. (Another place I was making $600 a month until they took a dump on all their writers).

Google's +1 system is an absolute joke and will never compete with the social dynamic of Facebook's like. What a waste of time.

Even their search terms have gone to crap. Some of my articles contained some helpful information for people to find resources in their cities to get faster approval for SNAP benefits. (The new word for food stamps). Well guess who out ranks me now if somebody wants to feed their family who just lost their job??? - Snap-on tools. LOL!

Freaking Snap-on tools outranks for people wanting to get on the SNAP food stamp system.

Google has gone to crap. Take it from somebody who has for many years made $500+ a month. No, I'm not a $10,000 a month expert, but $500+ at least shows I knew something about SEO, keyword placement, site building etc.

All the suggestions I'm reading are leaving me with a WTF attitude, because I had all those. Quality, unique content, no spinning at all, excellent grammar, excellent spelling, no dead links, and all was working fine until Panda. Now people who just lost their jobs will be able to feed themselves with screwdrivers and wrenches, because they won't find me when ranked on page 2.

In my opinion, Google was STUPID as hell for this move. They are going to lose a ton of money on adsense and HURT other companies who were advertising through adsense. For instance, the discount grocers that put ads for the SNAP pages I made, won't be advertised on Snap-on tools (and Snap-on tools doesn't even use adsense anyway).

I've waited for 2+ weeks now to see if things would go back to normal and nothing has. They just shot themselves in the foot BAD. I bet others here can testify that their top ranked sites that are now low don't even contain adsense ads. Hurts advertisers and people who place ads both.

In time Google if they keep this crap up will also hurt their popularity as a search engine because when you go desperately looking for SNAP benefits and you find snap-on tools it sucks.

I'm thinking of throwing in the towel for e-commerce. The most reliable thing I have found was selling an e-book on a topic you are an expert on, and having a top level domain well advertised with no competition.

I was once a $1500 a month from online earnings, since ehow & adsense, I'm down to $200 a month.

Pick up and move on? - yeah, my attitude is for a real job! LOL!

Anybody else feel the same way?

[newebie]

Don't give up man. There always be some changes, there always be some fails so head up and go make it.

Go get some fresh air, drink a class of your favorite beverage but do not quit for one fail

Keep improving! Keep your faith!

[wolfmmiii]

The Panda stuff has done for me what Google had hoped. I'm preparing to ramp up my dormant AdWords account.

[Ernie Lonardo]

Yeah Ive kinda given up on SEO during the earlier panda update early this year. Im not normally a quitter but its just smart. Nobody knows what Googles wants, so why risk all your hard work.

Each month my traffic and revenue where growing as I was supposedly doing what Google wanted, then wham they threw me back down to the bottom of the river and instead place worse pages above mine?

I guess its still worth a try for some extra income but if you rely on SEO as your main business/traffic model then be prepared for the worst.

[yeshuaisiam]

I know there is always "hope" and there is the video on "finding new cheese".

Of course the BOTTOM line is the earnings. If a CTR goes down (I've even witnessed clicks VANISH on the same day), then there is a severe problem.

I'm with the guy "for extra money", but honestly guys and I'm not trying to discourage, I would be VERY careful relying on online business for your main income.

Seriously I'm down from $1500 a month to $200. I played by the rules, never spammed, never spun, never advertised maliciously... But I still got crushed.

As I said, my SNAP articles for people in desperate need of food were outranked by Snap-on tools. That's ridiculous. But anyway, its their company. Too bad I won't be hitting up commissions with them as much any more. Just like e-how screwed up and took $600 a month away of split commissions.

I'd make a lot more money if I got off my butt and worked the same 5-6 hours that I would spend a day doing this.

Just putting out a rant, warning, and experience.

When we rely on somebody else to pay us, anything can happen at the blink of an eye.

Thank God this was an extra money thing. At my rate though I was teetering on actually doing it full time. I'm so glad I didn't do that.

[Ace1337]

I never got hit by Panda on any of my sites, so no.

[JSProjects]

No. Just evolving. Think back 5-6 years. SEO was a different game. You just have to evolve.

[linkbuildr]

Panda doesn't care about how long your content is, it's more about quality and if you got hit then your content sucks...it's quite simple. Was you site an affiliate site that just fed people over to the sale? Google hates these sites unless you've built it up to be a brand of sorts on its own.

[reloading]

You must adapt and overcome. I would think that if it is true about sites like snap-on ranking for unrelated terms that they will eventually fix such issues.

But no, I would never recommend quitting at this point. I would also recommend working on promoting your site a bit more and explore other traffic sources.

[Intrepreneur]

Since update my traffic increased.

Not sure why yours has dropped but maybe you could consult an expert to see why.

[Wakunahum]

Originally Posted by linkbuildr

Panda doesn't care about how long your content is, it's more about quality and if you got hit then your content sucks...it's quite simple. Was you site an affiliate site that just fed people over to the sale? Google hates these sites unless you've built it up to be a brand of sorts on its own.

I'm not sure I believe this.

I had a site with awful content (less than 200 words per page nonsense) that went from 50 to 500 visitors a day with panda changes.

I had 3 sites with long beautiful content with average visitors of more than 5 minutes a piece with great rankings. These were replaced with shopping type sites in the top 10 results with little content on them.

I am making the most money now on my worst content with an average visit of less than 20 seconds on the page.

[IamTJM]

My rankings have actually been increasing. For every site that drops, there has to be a site that is rising so it is a double-edged sword. SEO is constantly changing and those who adapt fastest will be successful.

[yukon]

I think OP is getting personalized SERP results in his browser.

When I search for the keyword SNAP, snap-on-tools is on page #3 in the SERPs, page #1 & #2 of the SERPs are all Gov assistance sites.

[Raul991]

I am never going to quit!

SEO and Internet Marketing in general is an amazing opportunity and no Google update is going to take me down.

The point is that there will always be changes whether you work online, offline and the key is to adjust to the new situations quickly. So I keep on testing like I did before Panda and I will find the ways to be succesful in SEO.

Yes, I had some sites dropping after the update, but yet many of sites raised in rankings and now I am making more money than I was making before. When there is a search engine and it is ranking sites by some values then why cant I rank my sites?!(this is my motiation)

[JeanneLynn]

I only started building my websites in September and I don't recall anything anything bad happening as a result of October Panda. However, my websites are so new that they don't get a lot of traffic at all yet.

Stories like this worry me though and I wonder if I'm wasting my time. I am a good writer and I put up useful content. I was under the impression that if you put up good content and didn't do shady SEO or backlinking, you'd be good with Google.

I'm a 43 year old woman who can't work a regular job right now. I have a chronic and disfiguring skin disease that is being treated with chemotherapy drugs. I really need this website venture to work or I'll probably have to go on SSDI. I'd rather not do that; I want to be productive. I was writing for Demand Studios, but that has dried up now. They don't have any good titles lately. I also wrote for Ehow and made good money until they stopped paying. I've looked into setting up a content writing service, but I noticed that the going rates for articles is about $3-$5 each.

I'm willing to work hard on my websites, but these Google updates scare me. It would be terrible to go from making $1500 a month to $200.

I hope your income goes back up soon.

[HarryS]

Panda hit me hard too. You need to diversify and build revenue streams that do not rely on Google for your profit.

[MaverickUK]

Relying on Google for earnings isn't a bad thing at all, people just seem to think that everything in life comes without risks which is an idiotic view to have. Relying on Google is just the same as relying on an overseas supplier for your brick and mortar business for example - every business comes with its risks regardless of what it is.

Don't get scared by Google Panda, it's designed to scare. If you get hit and give up then more fool you - it's simply an anglorithm that isn't perfect and does punish sites that truly don't deserve it, however future updates to the algorithm may well bring your site back to where it belongs.

On another note why not trying to submit a reconsideration request? As stupid as it sounds it's a good idea - my website was hit by a penalty, not entirely sure if it was Panda or something else but it disappeared to page 20 or something of the results. I submitted a reconsideration request and it was answered a week later, surprisingly they said that there was no manual action taken on my website, however the VERY NEXT DAY my website was back to first and second for its keywords.

We online marketers have our ups and downs, you just have to battle through it and stick your middle finger to Panda. Don't let all these other people depress you in to thinking Google is against you, it's not, shi* just happens sometimes.

[Mike Anthony]

If you don't want to change how you do SEO and your business then I would say -

You SHOULD quit.

Sorry but those thinking that Google is going to go backward and do another update that rolls back effects of Panda - You are dreaming. Future update will come and they will target the same sites. With the leak of the reviewers guide its quite obvious what Google wants and is paying good money to reviewers to find. Future algos will be targeted against the same kind of sites that Google calls low quality.

[36burrows]

If you can't adapt to changes then yes quit. There's a reason why internet marketing isn't for everyone.

Although I DO feel your pain...I really do, but this is something that I want bad enough that I will pick up the pieces and keep going no matter what.

[Becker13]

Originally Posted by yeshuaisiam

I'm considering quitting. I wrote very high quality articles on a PERSONAL domain that is 11 years old. Usually they were 600 words minimum, and a daily update & comments section. I did put up fresh content 5 times a week writing a 600 word article in the same theme of my website on a daily workday basis.

There is zero proof that any of these control a sites ranking my man. If you didnt notice this last update is highly focused on sending people to authority sites.

Google is about sending people to the most reliable and informative sites, period.. I am pretty sure they are actually trying to avoid having small sites ranking for 1 or 2 keywords and much more in favor of BIG sites ranking for 100+ keywords

[DynaPass]

This is a touchy subject for many people. Although if your main source of internet marketing revenue was from Adsense then most likely you got hit for a reason. Only so many people who rank sites for Adsense revenue were ranking them properly, if the site was ranked properly but still got hit I would suggest notifying Google as I saw in another thread the other day.

Sounds like the major fundamentals of SEO were skipped though otherwise why would Panda have had an affect on your site.

[mosthost]

I don't believe in quitting. As long as there is a breath in my lungs, I will continue fighting the good fight. BTW, the amount of money you 'lost' is very minor compared to losses I suffered this year. You know what, though? My content really sucked I'm not taking it as hard as you are for that reason I guess.

[Rough Outline]

Evolve or die.