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Breaking News: Panda Update Changes Product Site Design?

by KingArthur
14 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Lords and Ladies of the realm:

Let's say I found out the the keyword "Bananas for Sale" was lucrative and I only had one competitor and I got the domain name bananasforsale.org and I am going to design my site so that especially visitors and also g00gle were going to regard it highly.....

Does the g00le Panada update take into consideration that when people type in bananas for sale they are NOT looking for rich content but they are looking for bananas for sale and that would include lots of pictures rather than content so that an effective purchase can be made?

What good is a rich content site if it does not show bananas for sale? But according to the panda update g00gle is going to rank pages and sites according to their rich content in words. The only problem with this is that g00le should rank a site according to what the visitor wants to see and not according to a strict interpretation of the panda update.

So, I am in a quandry.... in order to beat out my competitor who is number one for the keyword (but missing one letter): bananaforsale.com I am going to either do what he does and have some content but lots of pictures so people can see pictures and purchase the bananas and do it all on the same pages.

OR, I design a content rich site according to the Panda update with no pictures on the site and instead direct people to an Amazon/ebay store where they can purchase via pictures and descriptions on a separate site. The links to this store would be cloaked in such a way that they are not recognized as store links. So it appears that my site has only content.

But there we go again, would such a site be highly regarded since when people type in bananas for sale they are looking for product content and not word content?

I am caught in a quandry trying to decide to design a content rich site with links to a store or putting the content and pictures of what people want to buy right on the same site?

I need valuable feedback: Would a content rich site with no pictures directing to an amazon/ebay store full of pictures and descriptions of the products there be the best for the long run in light of recent changes in Google and possible future changes? Would this help me beat out my competitor who has content and links from pictures to ebay and Amazon right on the same pages?

King Arthur
#breaking #design #news #panda #product #site #update
  • Profile picture of the author twistedpixel
    I think whatever will engage and motivate your market to buy is what you should use.

    Google also accounts for bounce rate, time on site, etc so if you greet a banana buyer with a wall of text rather than pics, vids and engaging content, you've defeated the goal just to cater to what you think Google wants.

    Of course, none of this makes any difference because in the end, the only way to insure you deliver the goods is to TEST with website optimizer or similar. Otherwise you are just guessing and hoping...and that never works very well in my experience...
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  • Profile picture of the author CheapTrafficDude
    Google wants content. The best you can do is enter alt tags for your images IE: Bananas for sale. Google, just like the almighty dollar doesn't care if you have the best bananas for sale website in the world, top spots will go to the ones with the best SEO. If you have a website with mostly images, Google MIGHT even perceive this as being image spam.

    I never built a website with mostly images but... I never seen any Clickbank product rank for "make money online" and lord knows how many images the average MMO CB product has. One image per paragraph seems to be the norm, give good content, that's what everyone wants especially the big G.

    The panda/farmer update was meant to penalize content farms. For example, a site that got nailed pretty hard was EzineArticles. The idea was to penalize webmasters using content spinners to spam those article directories. Same applies with those using auto-bloggers like WPRobot. All they do is scour feeds and articles or whatever and post it to their blog.

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeannie Crabtree
    Just the bare bones posts with mostly pictures will not do it any more, Google wants some content.

    I use a plugin to start the post and then write out the review from that skeleton. By the time I am done, it has both content and pictures.

    Change some of the wording, add your own, be sure to put a few links in to the product
    and that seems fine enough to please Google after the update.

    And then make sure to get backlinks, especially some high page rank ones and ones from authority sites. You can have the best site, but with no backlinks, you will not advance very far in the search engines.

    Download the free Traffic Travis and check out the competition for your keywords. You probably need double the amount of backlinks listed, as no where will google or yahoo show you the full amount of keywords for a site.
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  • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
    Well, if you know anything about SEO, Google can read the content of pictures... it's called the proper use of ALT tags.

    An image without the proper alt tag is no good though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Robert X
    All this talk about bananas is making me hungry.

    Well,, In my opinion, I would go with the giving the G00Gle monster what it wants. It appears that even tho you think it's a good idea to have pic's and give people what they want, it seems we still gotta pucker up and kiss that big G00gle A$$. I'd go with the content with a single pic. I'm gonna be experimenting with some content only with single pic and single link sites to see if the big bad G00gly goo likes them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Robert M Gouge
    With a powerful backlink building campaign, you can get away with having less content than the next guy and still rank very well.

    The idea being with *some* content (descriptions of the different types of bananas you're selling) and high quality, high pr backlinks from sites in your niche that use proper anchor text 'Bananas For Sale', Google will figure if those sites see you as an authority on 'Bananas for Sale' and your site matches that content (even with little content) then you must be.

    SEO is largely a balancing act. If you're short in one area (for your example, in content) you have to make up for it in another area (high quality, targeted backlinks). Take YouTube videos for example. The Rebecca black video, Friday. If you look up the term 'Friday' on Google, that video returns #1. Not the movie Friday or information about the day or anything else. The reason is because of the backlinks to that video.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ralf Skirr
    Breaking News: Panda Update Changes Product Site Design?
    Where's the news in your post? I see only questions.

    It's always nice to have descriptive post titles that actually match the post.

    Ralf
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by KingArthur View Post

    when people type in bananas for sale they are NOT looking for rich content
    WTF is wrong with you people?

    If I type bananas for sale into Google, I do not know where I am going to buy my bananas.

    But wherever I buy them, if the bananas are tasty and the prices are low, I am going to keep buying them there.

    The fact that I typed it in Google means that I am looking for rich content.

    You need to convince me to buy my bananas from you, not from some other schmuck with bananas for sale on the internet. That takes more than just your online catalog pages.

    Your catalog pages (without the rich content) do not need to rank.

    The only thing you need to rank is the page where you tell me to buy your damn bananas. That's the only thing that needs to be on the top of Google, because that's the only thing I care about when I type it in Google.

    Once you convince me, I will click the link to your catalog pages on your site and select the bananas I want to buy. And THEN, discovering that you do in fact sell the tastiest bananas at the lowest price, you will not find me typing bananas for sale into Google anymore.

    You will find me clicking my bookmark that points at your site.

    People do not use Google for every single thing they do. They use Google to find things. Once they've found those things, they don't need Google for them anymore.
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    • Profile picture of the author ecdavis
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      WTF is wrong with you people?
      Say what? I can't hear you . . . good lord, I've got bananas in my ears!

      Evan
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
    I believe a lot of people are off the mark here.

    The short answer is that e-commerce sites weren't the target of the panda update and were barely affected.

    If a user is clearly searching for something to buy as your keyword suggests, then they don't want an article appearing as the first result. Just because it has the keyword "bananas for sale" scattered throughout it 10 times doesn't make it the more relevant destination for the user. The user wants to land on a page where they can actually BUY the banana. And Google knows this.

    So if you're selling a product direct, then no, you don't need a new product/site layout. E-commerce sites are fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    Use JQuery... Slide shows, all content seen as on one page by SEs. Don't need one or the other, have both.
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  • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
    You could always do a review site for bananas. They're grown
    in different countries. So...

    You could also over-deliver by cautioning people that a plantain
    is not a regular banana. Maybe offer a freebie pdf describing the
    differences, in depth. You know... build a list, etc.

    Do not run afoul of the FTC. Be sure to state that you will make
    some dinars if they buy from your recommended source for bananas.

    But yeah... stick to a review site. You'll be good to go...

    Remember - you read it here, first.

    Go get 'em, tiger.


    Ken

    PS - How could I almost forget... don't be a schmuck and just make
    up the reviews, either. Eat the damn bananas, first... and then write
    honestly. You know, a lot of us more experienced folks can spot a
    fake banana review a mile away. So don't EVEN think about it.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Google knows what's in pictures - haven't any of you used Google Goggles on Android? It's early days but it does work.

    Of course facial recognition is nothing new either.
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  • Profile picture of the author thesorcerersapprentice
    I would give both Google and your customers what they want. Use pics with the proper alt tags to entice customers and set up a blog on the site so that you can have lots of regular content. This is also a great way of interacting with your customers/finding out what they want etc.
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