Panda recovery and the link to thin content ratio

[Mike Anthony]

very interesting study recently conducted and published on a respected SEO site

Panda DNA: Algorithm Tests on the Google Panda Update - Search Engine Watch (#SEW)

Not so surprising conclusion that cleaning up sites helps them recover but the research indicates two things not so obvious.

Google maybe tracking entire domains to compare quality so the adage that pages are ranked and not domains may be less true as an absolute today than before

and

a little more suspected - quality of links seems to have a multiplying effect on panda content issues on your site.

[LinkVariety]

Thanks for sharing that, its a really interesting read, and pertinent for me as I am reworking a "pandad" site at the moment. Im actually binning all the old content on that site and starting over with a new author.

I am halving the number of pages as there was a lot of duplication on the site too, for example where the same product was available in different colours or sizes I had posts re-written to cover those keywords, so the same product was in effect rewritten multiple times, and although efforts were taken to make them distinct you can onlly review the same thing so many ways, even if the color is different!

Hopefully it will come good as it was once a really good earning site

Regards the 301 redirect, I tried that on another site recently as I had picked up a better domain for the site and planned to redirect it anyway. That worked, however, as you probably know Panda is a slow process, it seems to take time not only to actually analyse sites but also to get "coverage" i.e. I think there were a lot of sites that were "missed" in earlier iterations as opposed to "passing the test".

I fully expect that 301'd domain to go back down again once Panda gets round to processing it, after all, the issues that got it hit in the first place still exist on the site.

[mosthost]

It's time for people who were impacted by Google Panda to admit they can fix their site. If they choose to, they can get back at least a lot of their former traffic. Dumping low-quality pages should not be an emotional decision. Cut them and move on.

[BenJackson]

That's a great case study, makes me wish I had the funds and time to run large scale SEO tests on 250 separately hosted domains :P

I had read before that Panda was a filter, it seems very clear now that it is.

[adrenalinfeed]

Thanks for sharing!

[yukon]

[source]

Similar is, however, a strange concept. Similar is definitely domain based. The exact same spam on another domain could still rank. It seems partly based on internal navigation structure and similarities in page templates.

I've been a firm believer that internal site structure is one of the largest on-page seo factors that can benefit an entire site.

A guy can most times dominate individual keywords in the SERPs, with site structure (double/triple listings) & quality external links.

I'm sure folks have been reading my comments about the subject, the kicker is most will never take action on such an easy seo technique.

[wegenbelasting]

Originally Posted by yukon

[source]


I've been a firm believer that internal site structure is one of the largest on-page seo factors that can benefit an entire site.

A guy can most times dominate individual keywords in the SERPs, with site structure (double/triple listings) & quality external links.

I'm sure folks have been reading my comments about the subject, the kicker is most will never take action on such an easy seo technique.

Have you checked out my big site recently Yukon? I moved to FreshSiteBuilder, it uses your advised site structure including the breadcrumbs.

I wonder how Google thinks of my site as it mostly contains scraped content from Amazon, the plus is that the decriptions are automatically spinned with TheBestSpinner.

Do you think when I eventually add 1 unqiue article on each page that it will do okay? Got 2500 pages so far

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by wegenbelasting

the plus is that the decriptions are automatically spinned with TheBestSpinner.

I don't know if I would consider that a plus. Have you read through the stuff that TBS, or any other spinner for that matter, produces on autopilot?

[wegenbelasting]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

I don't know if I would consider that a plus. Have you read through the stuff that TBS, or any other spinner for that matter, produces on autopilot?

Bestspinner has 3 category and I set it to give the best readable results, but sometimes its a bit awkward indeed but I've seen much much worse

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by wegenbelasting

Bestspinner has 3 category and I set it to give the best readable results, but sometimes its a bit awkward indeed but I've seen much much worse

I'm quite familiar with how TBS works. Even on its least spun setting, it still produces a lot of unreadable crap.

It's your site though. Good luck.

[Rukshan]

Originally Posted by yukon

[source]


I've been a firm believer that internal site structure is one of the largest on-page seo factors that can benefit an entire site.

A guy can most times dominate individual keywords in the SERPs, with site structure (double/triple listings) & quality external links.

I'm sure folks have been reading my comments about the subject, the kicker is most will never take action on such an easy seo technique.

Yeah, internal structure is a core part. Now content visible places also impact for SERP. If you show valuable content above the fold, Google will love it.

[tryinghard]

Very helpful case study for a novice like me.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by yukon

[source]


I've been a firm believer that internal site structure is one of the largest on-page seo factors that can benefit an entire site.

Yes its amazing that people don't understand this. You can convey all kinds of "goodness" throughout your site with the right navigation. This relates also to the point that Google can and very well might be analyzing the wider domain and not just the present page they are crawling.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

I'm quite familiar with how TBS works. Even on its least spun setting, it still produces a lot of unreadable crap.

It's your site though. Good luck.

Honestly on my money sites the most spinning I would do is sentence level which is more like a rewrite. Tried TBS but just like how spinchimp and evern magic article rewriter handled sentence spinning so never bought it.

[Texjd]

You can do your own test very easily on the latest Google changes. You don't need your own websites. Pick five different medium tail keywords (3-4 words) of different popularity. Do the searches and view each of the top ten, make a check list of 5-8 things to check on each one. then compare them at the end for common elements in the top three and bottom three results of each seach.

You can expand that to 10 sites if you have the time and inclination. I did and what I found is Google is all over the place on any visible factors. Quality? Please, a lot of the sites are pure MFA with no time spent on quality. The two biggest common factors I saw were diversity and link quality, and basic onpage correct SEO factors.

I'd certainly say that structure and internal linking is in the SEO factors.

But I really couldn't nail down any other obvious similarities. And there were a few really bad web pages ranked. So even though Google is trying, not sure they'll ever get the crap out of the listings using mathmatical equations.

One factor mentioned by many, bounce rate, is not visisble but I do believe from my own review of my websites that this too could have more importance now.

One thing that I did see that I have no idea if it applies is many Blogs doing the HTML impersonation. This is where you give each post it's own page.

Anyone have any experience good or bad with this method?

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Texjd

One factor mentioned by many, bounce rate, is not visisble but I do believe from my own review of my websites that this too could have more importance now.

Even if not directly it certainly does and will since Google is utilizing reviewers to give them a sense of what people like and don't like. They are then doing their best to incorporate those things as signals to the algo