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How Google Defines "Quality" after Panda

by Trivum
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
This article is a few months old, but I just came across it. It's an interview with Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal from Google.

An interesting part was when Cutts was talking about how they tried to determine quality and the non-Google employees they used to help judge websites:

Cutts: There was an engineer who came up with a rigorous set of questions, everything from. "Do you consider this site to be authoritative? Would it be okay if this was in a magazine? Does this site have excessive ads?" Questions along those lines.

TED 2011: The 'Panda' That Hates Farms: A Q&A With Google's Top Search Engineers | Epicenter*| Wired.com
One of the more interesting questions here for me is this one: Does this site have excessive ads?

I find this especially interesting because I have sites with Adsense, and I am CONSTANTLY getting messages saying, "Hey, you should add more Adsense blocks to your pages. Did you know that you have at least 293 pages on site XYZ that could have more ads on it?"

I literally got one of these the other day.

Matt Cutts is always going on about how different arms of Google have nothing to do with each other -- i.e. you don't get higher rankings because you have Adsense, or you don't get lower rankings because you're using Adwords, etc.

I believe him. And the reason I believe him is because I don't think Google's left hand knows what its right hand is doing. You have one department saying, "Put MORE ADS on your pages." And then you have the other department saying, "More ads means we're going to penalize you."

I think in ten years time someone from Google, maybe even Cutts himself, will look back on these days and say, "Yeah, that was a screw up. But those things happen." ... Words of a salaryman.
#defines #google #panda #quality
  • Profile picture of the author RevSEO
    Great post Trivum -

    Trying to appeal to Google can be difficult at times. Although if you generally stick to making yourself an authoritative website in your niche, then you'll see success.

    That means having great content, producing something that other competitors can't or won't take the time to produce, and providing a website that equates to good user experience. That means easy navigation and as mentioned in the article, not having ads plastered everywhere.

    Far too often people look at the short term goal, how much money can I make now? Rather than looking at the bigger picture and long term goal. The trick is that there really isn't a trick, produce GREAT content, and you'll see great results.
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    • Profile picture of the author ZILLIONAIRE
      Originally Posted by RevSEO View Post

      Far too often people look at the short term goal, how much money can I make now? Rather than looking at the bigger picture and long term goal. The trick is that there really isn't a trick, produce GREAT content, and you'll see great results.
      100% true, unfortunately people are coming up with all kinds or tricks to trick Google for a quick buck while they can simply provide what the big G wants and reap some bigger benefits later!
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  • Profile picture of the author weblink29
    I think the same can be said of any large corporation. I work for a large corp. Our department will sometimes follow guidelines that are a total opposite of another departments. Imagine a web hosting company where the sales department sits besides the abuse department. One department is trying to get new customers any way they can and the other department is cancelling customers accounts for doing things they aren't supposed to be doing. It's comical sometimes.
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    Nothing to see here folks.....move along.

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  • Profile picture of the author Carl Brown
    Originally Posted by Trivum View Post


    One of the more interesting questions here for me is this one: Does this site have excessive ads?

    I find this especially interesting because I have sites with Adsense, and I am CONSTANTLY getting messages saying, "Hey, you should add more Adsense blocks to your pages. Did you know that you have at least 293 pages on site XYZ that could have more ads on it?"
    I get these all the time too. I try to keep the number of ads down to two total and they pressure you to add 6. I've had articles rejected by ezinearticles because they tell me, while my article is fine, it points to a website filled with too many ads!
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    • Profile picture of the author rvrabel2002
      Originally Posted by Carl Brown View Post

      I get these all the time too. I try to keep the number of ads down to two total and they pressure you to add 6. I've had articles rejected by ezinearticles because they tell me, while my article is fine, it points to a website filled with too many ads!
      And whats even funnier about that is that if you look at their articles, they have NINE ad placements throughout their articles. That's right folks, nine ad placements. Go to an article and see for yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author drvosjeca
    yeah, ezine is making life more complicated these days
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  • Profile picture of the author gbarrows31
    if it is Fresh, New, Original content and makes sense and people find it interesting enough to link to it, like it, tweet it, and talk about it then its "Quality" in the big "G's" Eye.. How the heck do you get content like that? most people start to think...

    Time; Social proof; being an authority on something; and giving back to others before yourself;

    Good luck with all that ..

    George
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    Learn Just How I Do It!
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  • Profile picture of the author WealthWithin
    I've read this article when it was published.

    I just can't figure out why MC says the penalization on suite101 and ehow can be justified. I think both sites have decent content. But why did traffic go down for suite101, which it went up for ehow?
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    • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
      Originally Posted by WealthWithin View Post

      I've read this article when it was published.

      I just can't figure out why MC says the penalization on suite101 and ehow can be justified. I think both sites have decent content. But why did traffic go down for suite101, which it went up for ehow?
      About.com seems to be thriving, yet I count 6 ads on any given page.
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      • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
        Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

        About.com seems to be thriving, yet I count 6 ads on any given page.
        I think the issue occurs where the ratio of ads to content is too high. You have to take into account affiliate links as well, and many sites plaster these like they are going out of fashion. Your site shouldn't be a billboard.

        The first thing everyone should be looking at is whether their page provides a solution to the user's search. A lot don't.

        If you are going to provide a paid solution then make sure you are a trusted site where everything is transparent.

        No one really knows why sites have dropped because no one is willing to share their victims. They say their site is high quality but without an unbias opinion then no one really knows. Many just aren't that great and shouldn't have been ranked high to begin with.
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  • Profile picture of the author faceblogger
    Google panda is one of the hardest battle for all of us :-( It's bit worse than google's other recent measures.
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  • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
    I just removed all my ads (except for affiliate links in posts since they will take forever to seek and remove).
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    My Guitar Website | My SEO Blog - Advertising spots available.

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  • Profile picture of the author Amrutg
    Perhaps all the arms of google are at arm's length. Our appeal would fall on deaf ear. We have to accept google as it is. no way other than that.
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