3 Lessons I Learned from Google Penguin & Panda Update

by 120 replies
144
The Google Penguin & Panda update seem to have hit a lot of webmasters and causing a lot of frustration, pain and heartache.

Some of my sites got hit by the update but thankfully, I managed to get them back in the rankings after 2 months of hard work and no pay (no rankings = no pay for me).

Below I will be sharing with you the 3 lessons that I learned from the Google Penguin update.

Hope this will help anyone trying to rank in the post Penguin era.



Google seems to be paying more and more attention to quality after the Penguin update. They will look at the Bounce Rate and Average Time Spent on site primarily as an indicator of a site's quality.

Create extremely helpful and engaging content to keep your Bounce Rate low and Average Time Spent high.

Make sure you use a good web hosting that has great uptime to minimize the Bounce Rate as well.

The design of your site will also influence how your visitors behave and how long they will spend on your site.

Delete all that distracting, above the fold flash advertisings.

Keep your site header small to allow more content to be displayed above the fold.

When visitors land on your site, serve them with fat, juicy content that they can see straight away (above the fold).



Google loves everything to develop naturally in the Search Engine world.

They don't like overnight success and absolutely despise people who "fake" it.

Stop the purchasing service such as "1000 Backlink Blast in One Day!" or "10,000 Article Submission for Cheap!"

They will hurt your SEO.

Instead, try to keep everything natural. You do this by adding variation to everything.

* Vary your backlink sources. Don't just do Blog Post or Blog Commenting. Remember what happened to BMR (Build My Rank).

Get backlinks from different sources. Web 2.0, Forums, Press Release, Video Sites, Document Sharing Sites, Social Media. The more the merrier.

* Vary your anchor text. If your keyword is "Acne Cure" don't build all your link using "Acne Cure" as your anchor text. This will look unnatural to Google and they will think you are gaming the system.

Try to keep the main keyword percentage to be below 50% in your linkbuilding activity.

Add some LSI keywords and junk links to your link profile. Throw in phrases such as "Organic Acne Cure" (LSI Keyword) or "Click Here" (Junk Link) to diversify your link profile.

* Vary your post size. The usual rule of thumb in SEO is to get content around 500 words and Google will reward you.

Well, the Penguin have changed this.

Vary your post size. Do 1000, 2000 or even 5000 word post once in a while. When you are feeling lazy, do 150 or 250 word blurbs.

This will make your site looks as if it's written by a real human, not a scraping bot.

* Vary your daily backlink quantity. It's unnatural when your site is constantly getting 10 backlinks per day.

Sometimes do 1, sometimes do 20. Make sure your site is getting some links, but be very, very consistent in your daily linkbuilding activity.

Don't do linkbuilding for 10 days and then stop for 2 months.

Lesson 1 & 2 should help you deal with the Penguin & Panda update.

The third lesson has to do with business strategy and it is the MOST important one.

The third, final and most important lesson is...



Yes, SEO is great. Getting close to "free" traffic daily without having to pay expensive PPC campaign is fantastic.

However, it is getting more and more difficult each day and we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket.

Get more knowledge on paid advertising. Start small, but start.

Consider other means of getting traffic. The best way to do this is to pretend that Google does not exist.

What would you do if Google does not exist?

Where will you get your traffic from?

Answering those questions will be an eye opening experience for some people who think SEO is the only way to get traffic

Realizing that there are other sources of Traffic besides Google (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Paid Advertising, etc.) is the most valuable lesson that I have learned from the Penguin update.

The IM landscape is always changing each day. So does SEO.

Learn to adapt. Or stay still and vanish.

Hit thanks if you find this thread valuable and feel free to add your thoughts and comments below.

Good luck with your IM career.
#search engine optimization #google #learned #lessons #panda #penguin #update
  • This is fantastic information. Thank you very much.
    • [1] reply
    • You're welcome! Glad to know I'm helping people out there!

  • Good info! What I found for Panda in particular is that it loves bigger more authority type sites that typically have a large number of categories/parent pages and internal links on each page with good navigation.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes. Thin affiliate sites are dying and to be honest, I never found it to be a good business model.

      Why would you create a site based on one product? It's just too risky in the long run. In the short term it might work but it's just a loophole that will be closed quickly by the search engine.

      Big authority sites that deliver excellent value to the visitors will always win the SEO race. No matter what the algorithm changes are.

      Algorithm changes only affect people who are trying to "game" the SEO for short term gain.

  • Excellent advice. Great content always wins. So does patience and working smart.
    • [1] reply
    • SEO is a turtle's race indeed. There are so many people looking for the quick and easy way out and many of them are left disappointed.

  • Where did you hear this? If this was the case then people could just put their competitors site in a traffic exchange so their bounce rate is high. It doesn't seem like a good or reliable indicator of a sites quality to me.
    • [1] reply
    • The bounce rate and time on site metrics has been used by Google way before the Panda & Penguin update.

      And sadly, negative SEO does exist after the Penguin update. Just do a Google search on "Negative SEO" and you will see a lot of people offering that service to harm their competitors by using backlink spam and other black hat techniques.

      Please don't use this information to harm other sites. Always be ethical in your marketing.

  • I Think You will say a simple word "Do Naturally Look a Like". Thank You Guys For sharing
    • [1] reply
    • Yes. Always keep everything "looking" natural when it comes to SEO.

      • [1] reply
  • I think the first one is key. If you focus on the visitor, you will naturally get links and traffic. In the beginning it will probably seem like you are making a website for no one, but once the ball gets rolling, it won't stop.
    • [1] reply
    • That's correct. Too many times we are bogged down with on Page SEO and by doing so, we forgot who we are writing to.

      Page that is overdone with on Page SEO will not appeal to a human being. The key here is to balance the human needs with the bot's need.

  • #3 is the most important.
    • [1] reply
    • Definitely. The last, but not the least.

      Seriously, the Google is only a fraction of the Internet. Open up your eyes and see there are unlimited traffic potential out there, not just Google.

  • With your signature being exactly what this topic is about, it seems to me that all you are doing is shameless advertising... At least you took the time to write some content tho
  • This is a very nice summary! Thumbs up for you.
  • Thanks for this wonderful Idea you have share for us.. I will Give you 1 million Likes..
  • These are the 3 things I did to my website which survived Penguin, and the 3 missing thing in other website that being smacked. One of my hobby website, which I wrote the content heartily, with very lazy natural backlinks, increased in traffic after Penguin to 40% than Panda era. The other, which solely exploiting keyword and backlinks above all else, deceased.

    I think we're all guilty for wanting everything being automated for "very fast result". Blast xx,xxx backlinks, scrape x,xxx contents. Now that Google changes, we have to slow down, and even look for other sources of traffic (paid advert, social media). Depending your life and death to Google is folly.
  • Yep. Lossed a couple sites with this recent update. Havn't touched them since
  • great tips but i don't agree with not relying on Google as the main traffic source, i was in google first page and no traffic source online can get even close to 1% value of Google traffic, just learn how to work with Google.
    • [2] replies
    • To be honest, I used to think like you.

      However, I'm pretty sure you haven't looked at all your options then. SEO has its strength but its not something you can control.

      I did paid advertising and drove massive amount of traffic that is impossible to replicate with SEO.

      SEO is not the only game in town and I realized that after I was searching around for more traffic sources.

      It's just a folly to depend your income on SEO alone.

    • That's a big claim! A lot of people would put their email list up against the value of Google traffic and outperform it quite easily. Or what about the RSS subscribers to a well run blog that anxiously wait each week for the author's next post. Or what about the publisher who knows that each visitor he gets makes him $0.50c on average and only costs him $0.10c to send him to his offer.

      Google is great for a chunk of your traffic but many would argue that more controllable traffic sources are much more valuable.
      • [1] reply
  • I guess many in IM new that trying to game the system by manipulating seo and backlinks wasn't ethical or natural and would eventually be penalized, should be no surprise. The message is and really always has been, to add value, write for humans and engage constructively with people, be natural.
    Thanks for sharing your results freely, many others would simply have tossed a WSO together and flogged it for $7 or more. :rolleyes:
  • Thanks for the great information!
  • thanks man this is very good post to learn from.
  • @nasuryono - Thanks for sharing your experience.
  • Banned
    That's the best part. Don't concentrate into earning. Concentrate to help the visitors and give good service. And your site will be automatically ranked. Do everything but keeping a good quality level.
    that's the thing I have learned fro them.
    • [1] reply
    • Mediocrity really rules the marketplace and quality is a very important metrics. Sometimes as a marketer we forgot to give value (or help) our customer when we are only focused on just making the sales.

      When we give value, we earn our customer's trust and trust is priceless.

  • 100% agreed - it is indeed madness to depend on one single traffic source, let alone Google of all sources. Mix it up, so that if one source goes down you are still doing OK.
  • yep, i have got lots of latest SEO updates from your post, but i can't understand one subject that you've written that, its unnatural when I build daily 10 backlinks for my site, but i don't understand that why is this looking unnatural to Google. Manually I can build 20 social bookmarking for my site daily so easily. So, why does Google not like more than 10 backlinks building per day?
    • [1] reply
    • It's not the number of backlinks that Google is looking at but rather the diversification of the anchor text.

      For example, if your site is about "dog training" and you build 10 links per day all using the same anchor text "dog training," then it will look unnatural to Google.

      Try to diversify your anchor text as well as the link source. Google seems to be paying more attention to Social Media sites nowadays so you might want to start linkbuilding there.

      • [1] reply
  • This is indeed true. Google is like saying "stop doing SEO" so that everything will be natural.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes. It is sad, but true. Somehow Google is betraying their own mantra of "Don't be Evil" by twisting the SEO game around.

      When they make this switch, all I can see is worse search results from Google and more revenue (from Adwords) to Google.

      Somehow when they say "look natural" all they want to really say is "Pay for SEO!"

  • I completely agree with you content is king,if it is unique we can achieve good position.Very good informative post thanks for sharing.
  • Great Information but I am really getting bored of hearing about Penguins and Pandas!
    • [1] reply
    • LOL

      Same here. I heard they're going to launch a Tuna update soon though

  • I have to thank you for this great tipps. Some things i have learned from you. thank you!
  • Content is always king. and natural links are good to boost your website... Thanks for your info.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, this is true not just in SEO, but in all IM activity.

      No matter what method you are using to drive traffic to your site, be it SEO, paid advertising, media buys, etc. if you don't have great content, your visitors will leave and you will not make the sale.

  • Dude you're contradicting yourself right from the start. You say to focus on your visitors but then you recommend blog commenting and submitting your crap content to doc sharing sites.

    These aren't any new lessons.
    • [1] reply
    • I think your comment really shows how shallow your thoughts are and how small your world is.

      I'm not contradicting myself when I said to focus on your visitor and submit blog comment and doc sharing site.

      If you write blog comment with good content and intention (no spam) as well as submit your high quality content to a doc sharing site, you will get traffic and respect.

      • [1] reply
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Basically do everything google tells you to...

    The problem is once you've built a link you're already black hat (whether you want to admit it or not)... so you've already opened pandora's box, why not go crazy.
    • [2] replies
    • This is true in a way. We are only "guest" on the Google SERP and we have to play by their rules.

      Regarding the black hat link, it is now possible to do negative SEO after the Penguin update and so you might want to be careful here.

      For new sites, stick to safe SEO with diversified anchor text links.

    • Isn't that kind of like saying, Once you've broken the speed limit you've already broken the law so you might as well start murdering people. ?
      • [1] reply
  • that's called a masterstroke of information,thanks so much for simple and powerful information involves all essential steps.please if have some time then also elaborate the right procedure for link building like link exchange,how to increase pr or getting indexed quickly,proper site structure?

    thanks in advance for rest.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks for your kind words. I am planning to launch a guide just like that soon

  • Thanks for the great advice. It is very helpful
  • thanks a lot for sharing these useful tips.......
    • [4] replies
    • You're welcome. Hope this post has opened your eyes to SEO after the Penguin update.

    • I love the first point...too many people focus on building sites that Google loves instead of building sites that visitors love
      • [1] reply
    • Wow,

      Thanks a ton for this super useful information. I've read a bit of the things you've mentioned elsewhere but not this in depth. This is actually very good information that I will implement in my further tries with my own sites. Thanks allot for taking the time to write all of your findings!
      • [1] reply
    • Perfect information of natural way SEO. I really appreciate you, for this very informative and awesome post. Such a great work.
      • [1] reply
  • thanks very nice post
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks, glad you get something good out of it.

  • Thank you for the information! I really needed this as I had just created a new site. Thank you!
    • [1] reply
    • You're welcome! Glad I am helping new sites out there.

      Good luck with your new site SEO!

  • thanks a lot for this useful thread ,as i am suffering from the same pain now i am going to try all these to regain the visitors which i have lost.
    • [3] replies
    • somebody please tell me my organic keywords of the website has disappeared , what i have to do in order to built the new organic keywords in search engine..
      i will be very thankful..
    • somebody please help me,the organic keywords of the website has disappeared , what should i do in order to built the new organic keywords in search engine..
      i will be very thankful..
      • [1] reply
    • You're welcome. I know the pain of losing rankings can be quite unbearable but stick with SEO. This is a test of your persistence.

      Persist or perish. It's just that simple.

  • Great post OP.

    I wanted to further elaborate on one of your points: to not solely rely on Google for traffic. For those who are in the commerce niche, I think it's very important to point out that you MUST use Google Shopping because it'll help you greatly in bringing in targeted leads and that section of Google doesn't get hit with algorithm updates.

    Hope that was helpful!
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, a lot of people (especially newbies) are just relying on Google for "Free" traffic. They forgot that their time is costing them money.

      Always diversifying your traffic source is always an excellent strategy.

  • Precisely! It's sad to see many people are still falling into this trap of buying an "automated backlink solution" or "push button backlinks" with the hope of improving their rankings.

    In reality, it is only hurting their rankings.

  • Yeah.. true. Its enough to concentrate on visitors because when users get satisfied of a site, Google also started loving that site.

    This too very essential for ranking in SERP. If we can't do it naturally, at least we try to make it looks naturally....
  • Pretty useful info
  • Very true. Thanks for the share.

    The bottom line here is that we are all reminded that we should produce content and information to humans and not to search engines.

    Quality information counts a lot. There are actually a lot of websites who do little SEO effort and they just focused on producing great content. You know what, it works for them.

    I also agree to never rely on Google for traffic. There are now a lot of avenues to get people coming to you like the social networking sites.
  • Excellent post. Thanks for sharing I agree completely that the days of getting away with x,xxx backlinks per day are gone. Google loves well written content, and I have found that articles submitted to free article directories are ranking on page 1 of not only Google, but also ranking on page 1 of Bing and Yahoo as well within a week of being submitted. Content is still king.
    • [1] reply
    • You're welcome! Yes, gone are the days of backlink blasting. It seems the search engine are getting smarter at picking up content that readers really love.

  • Great share. Well worth the time I spent reading it
    • [1] reply
  • I totally agree with this information and as a noob this is really eye opening. I admit I thought SEO revolved around getting ranked in Google. I always see these up-in-a-flash websites with regurgitated and unoriginal content stuffed with keywords. I guess the old way of focusing on rankings is no longer effective?

    My question is with this change will websites based on the old method fall in rankings now?

    Also, social network marketing is something new to me but I'm hearing alot of new techniques that aren't spamming, but actually work to generate traffic. I thought the whole facebook/twitter marketing thing was kinda leery at first, but apparently it worka and actually does a great job of getting a website ranked from what I understand.

    Thanks for the great info!!
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, the old way of manipulating backlinks with keyword rich texts are no longer effective.

      To answer your question, yes. Many sites using the old model of SEO is falling off the rankings now.

      The key to achieve social media success is to build a real relationship with your fans/followers.

  • Thanks for the post.
    After the penguin updates it quite feels like one do not need to do SEO and just write a blog as a normal blogger, but at the same time it will feel weird when not doing SEO. Kind of: "are I getting any traffic"? penguin say yes, your feelings say no.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes! Finally Google are asking us to write for real people! And I understand how you feel about finally writing to real people. We have been trained over and over again to write for the search engine.

      Oh well, it's a change and for the better. If you want to play on Google's ground, you gotta obey the rules.

  • Precisely! Many newbies think that Google is *the* only source of traffic.

    What they don't realize is that there are so many other forms of traffic out there. For a start, let's begin with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest... not to mention the massive ability of PPC and PPV traffic.

    When you open your eyes to the possibility, it can be limitless.

  • Thank you very much for your info! Very nice info
    • [1] reply
    • You're welcome. Glad to hear this from a Senior Member.

  • Thank you SO much for this post! I'll be sure to bookmark it so I can go back for future reference. I kind of like the idea that quality will win in the end, as a writer rather than SEO super shark, it makes me feel the playing field has leveled a bit. As you correctly point out, we shouldn't put too much focus on Google, I pretend they don't exist quite a lot.
    • [1] reply
    • Exactly right! Actually, I am an SEO practitioner but I am focusing more towards creating better content for my readers, not for Google. In the end, I will win because I can be independent of Google to drive traffic to my site.

      Quality always win and good luck with your writing journey!

  • I agree 100%

    When you are doing Internet Marketing for a living you just can not afford to have all of your income reliant on Google rankings.
    • [1] reply
    • Precisely! Never put all your eggs in one basket. Always, always, always diversify your traffic sources.

  • It's nice to see this post actually. I've seen way too many recently that say things like "content doesn't matter", that drives me insane.

    Google's main focus has always been to deliver the highest quality services to their customers (searchers), so if you provide quality content chances are you will get backlinks normally.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes. The people who said "content does not matter" is pretty much just trying to sell you their "scammy" product. If the content doesn't matter, why the heck would we have the internet? Why should people buy from you/your affiliate links?

      Surprisingly, if you just do SEO according to Google's philosophy of delivering better content, you will not have to worry about SEO too much!

  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Yes thanks for these tips.

    It's true the game has changed alot this year. You have to adapt to the changes and these tips are pointing us in the right direction, thanks!
    • [1] reply
    • Glad you've enjoyed my tips. True, the SEO landscape has changed greatly especially in the recent years with Google becoming more and more "spam proof."

      We'd have to adapt at their game and discover new methods to not be too dependent on them.

  • Great insights. Many thanks.
    • [1] reply
  • [DELETED]
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, that is a great way to build an authority link to your site. Do a few and see the results that you'll get.

  • Really great information. Thank you very much.
    • [1] reply
    • Glad you've learned a lot from my share.

  • This lesson is very very useful for us. No any word to say more, thank you so much!
    • [1] reply
    • You're very welcome! Glad I am helping people out there.

  • [DELETED]
  • Thanks for sharing this information Nasuryono.
    I am building backlinks naturally rather than having any PPC campaign for my site.And i know what it takes to be at top.If i take my work leniently for a single day it affects my rankings somehow.So i have to be there all the time to get things works.Your suggestion #2 is of great importance and the best one can apply.
    • [1] reply
    • Actually, you can do both. You can build backlinks and do PPC at the same time.

      There's nothing wrong with it. However, backlinks need to be built naturally and not blasted in one day.

  • Excellent Post, Although social media is playing a huge part in rankings... tweeting your blog post and updating your facebook fan page status to your blog links helps alot!
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, social media does play a huge part in SEO now. Use them to your advantage but don't spam. My favorites are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and Pinterest.
  • Thanks for the post. I found these tips very useful.
  • It give me great information.
    I always focus in search engine and get very bored with SEO
    I hope I can be natural SEO player
  • Hi,
    I have liked all your points, but have reservations about one.
    Well, I am pretty religious about the fact how I create my back links. I create 10 per day for my sites. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I have set aside some time for that from my busy schedule and work on it by setting my targets. So I think there is nothing wrong with setting my targets and achieving them everyday.
  • 1. Never

    2. Trust

    3. A pretty face (google)
  • Nice! Yes. Keep it white-hat and don't put all your eggs in one basket!
  • You're absolutely right...lots of my sites got burried by google penguin...I almost get fustrated..But i decide to survive and face this situation..
    • [1] reply
    • I've noticed that most sites that survived the Penguin were not relying totally on backlinks. They have activity on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Adwords .. all that stuff that brings people to interact on their site.

      Those that were relying on backlinks (Google Rankings) tend to get nailed at some point during Penguin, and it's only a matter of time before they tighten the algorithm again.

      So if you are relying only getting to page 1 to make your business it's a bit more complicated than driving backlinks.

      Times are interesting.

      Google created all this. It has only 10 places on page 1. So there will obviously be a rush to get there and SEO companies help people get there.

      It seems to me that we are being pushed to Social Forging strategy where you have to have a) a site that people like b) you invest time in it yourself c) you actively market it around the web.

      Of course if that's not your game then there's always Adwords.

      I wonder if Google Adwords usage has gone up since Panda & Penguin.
  • thanks for sharing your experiences
  • I do the same tips you mentioned to my sites thanks for sharing they are very useful
  • This is utter garbage.

    Is this based on your opinion or fact?

    There is no such thing as link velocity. If there were, then the effectiveness of press releases would be rendered completely useless.

    One single press release, or any type of large scale online media coverage for that matter, can often result in tens of thousands of backlinks pointing to your site literally overnight.

    Are you going to suggest that we should call these organisations and have them "drip feed" newsworthy content, just to satisfy Google's algorithm?

    C'mon man.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
Join the discussion

Next Topics on Trending Feed