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Panda Be Gone! Some Google Panda Fixes Which Worked For Me

Panda Update Fixes







Some Google Panda Fixes Which Worked For Me

  • Copyright Titus Hoskins

Like many of my fellow webmasters...

Last October, to my ultimate horror, I woke up to discover that the Google Panda Updates had affected several of my sites. I have around 10 sites and most were left untouched by the Panda, some even gained search traffic from Google.

However, the two sites bitten by Panda had very lucrative Google traffic which made it worth my time to try and recover this valuable search engine traffic. Over the past year, I have read countless posts, articles and web pages on how to fix the Panda problem.

Now, for anyone reading this who is not a webmaster or site owner, Panda is the nickname given to a series of Algorithm changes Google introduced around a year ago in the winter of 2011 and these changes are still ongoing.

I have been working on these sites for months, trying to secure the Panda fix.

Finally, for my major keyword phrase, I did manage to bring one site back from page 6 of Google to page 2. Might not seem like much, but for years, this site ranked on the first page of Google and because of the Panda adjustments it dropped in Oct. to the sixth page. (This is an extremely competitive keyword with over a billion competing pages.)

First, you must keep in mind, ranking on the first page of Google is only a matter of getting quality links from keyword related sites and pages. Get enough of these links and you WILL rank in Google for your site's targeted keywords.

UNLESS...

Now you will rank unless your site draws a penalty or penalties.

This is pretty much what the Panda Updates are about... Google has made changes to its algorithm (the rules which says how your content is ranked) and if your site triggers any of these rules/changes your site gets a penalty and is lowered in the rankings.

Panda is all about JUDGING the quality of your content and site. Is it unique? Is it high quality? Does it have value? Is the content presented properly? Does it give the end-user a satisfying experience?

Countless webmasters have had their sites penalized by the Panda Updates - many of them very high quality sites. However, most of them had at least one thing in common, they all triggered the Panda's nose in some way when it came a crawling.

Since the Panda was and is an ongoing series of Algorithm changes, there is no doubt many issues which could trigger the downgrade of your site.

Here's the real kicker...

The Panda Updates Judges Your WHOLE site instead of just the web pages in question. WHY Google decided to make this devastating move is still a big puzzlement? If any web page or content is judged to be inferior or of poor quality - just drop it from the index or derank it.

Why did Google have to penalize WHOLE websites?

Point is - they didn't have to do this. And this fact will linger in the minds of affected webmasters and site owners for years to come. All this "ill-well" could have been avoided if Google had just stuck to ranking pages instead of changing it to ranking whole sites.

Regardless, Google's traffic is so valuable, webmasters like myself, will jump through hoops to stay on the right side of Google's wrath.

And jump through hoops I did, working hard to bring my rankings back from page 6 to page 2 - I still have a little more work to do, but I believe I can reach that first page again.

Here's what I did...

1. I Did A Total Check Of All My Site's Links

Both external and internal links were checked to see if I had any broken links which needed to be fixed. While I don't believe linking had much to do with the Panda Updates, the overall quality of your site was on the judgment stand. Broken links means you have a broken site - so fix them first. I found using the free Xenu Link Sleuth software works fine.

While links are not the main focus with Panda, just make sure any links pointing out doesn't go to bad neighborhoods and you don't have any inbound links coming from poor quality sites or link farms. That said, many webmasters found changing the linking structure of their sites fixed any Panda issues... using Sub-domains to re-arrange their content and links worked for these webmasters.

2. I Removed Or Improved Many Of My Content Pages

Panda was originally called the "content farm" update because it was mainly aimed at getting poor quality pages removed from Google's index. I closely examined all the pages on that site and simply deleted any pages which I found lacking in quality. Any article pages which were displayed on other sites were deleted. I checked closely for any duplicate content or duplicate "titles" or "descriptions" within the pages on the site.

Keep in mind, if you're into affiliate marketing, any product descriptions coming from your promoted companies will more than likely be placed on 1000's of other web sites around the web. So write your own unique descriptions and reviews to keep your content original. The same goes for images, make sure your images are original and not duplicates of affiliate images.

Plus, on one section of that site, I had used the Google Keyword tool to find related keywords and then wrote short content pages on each of these keyword phrases - like you would. However, I deleted most of these pages - mainly because this is unnatural and the content was directed too much towards the SEO angle. This could easily trigger a penalty because you're basically trying to game the system.

3. I Fixed Many On-Site Metrics

Metrics sounds too technical, but I checked how fast my pages loaded? Checked the bounce rates and how long someone stayed on my site? How current or fresh was my content? These are ranking factors which are coming into play much more now after the Panda Updates. All these metrics are supposed to measure how good your whole site is... I tried to improve wherever I found my pages and site lacking.

4. I Tried To Cut Down On The Number & Placement of Affiliate Links

While most experts don't agree, I firmly believe Google doesn't like affiliate sites and affiliate links, especially if your site is too affiliate orientated and/or has too many affiliate links. Your site might be seem as too much competition for Google's big bread-winners.... if the major Adwords clients can get affiliates to bring in the majority of their traffic and sales, they don't need Google. Thus, in actual fact, affiliate marketers are in direct competition with Google and we all know how Google handles their competition.

So I cut down on the number of affiliate links I have on my pages... especially making sure I didn't have too many above the fold as this may draw a penalty. I also tried to keep any links to a bare minimum above the fold, to give visitors a chance to go deeper into my content. Besides this will give those visitors a much better quality experience, which is the main objective of everyone concerned.

5. I Gave My Whole Site A "Social Media" Facelift

I believe social bookmarking in all the social media networks will play a major role in how your content will be judged by Google. Besides, it is a great way to get traffic and valuable one-way links to your site. So I checked around to see how other important sites on the web were handling this issue, for example, at the time of checking - Searchengineland was using the Sharethis platform and buttons.

I placed these Sharethis buttons on all my web pages and included floating or hovering buttons to one side. These will stay in the visitor's view at all times - increasing the chances that they will share my content. I made a special point to include Google+ in these buttons, mainly because it is a given fact that Google does promote and use its own programs.

6. I Removed Any Links Which Had The Meta Refresh Redirect

This seems to be the KEY to why my site triggered a penalty. Some while back I had gotten a simple Meta Refresh script from Clickbank which was simply meant to hide your referral code so you wouldn't lose commissions. However, as I found out, using "meta refresh" is a Big NO-NO in the eyes of Google.

They even point this out on the Google support page here:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=15262&answer=79812

Mainly because some browsers can't handle it and your pages will end up blank. Also, these meta-refresh pages is probably seem by Google to be inferior or even duplicate content. These were affiliate links so I had the same ones on all my pages.

I changed all these links to a 302 php redirect, most affiliate marketers use these kinds of php redirects to cloak their links so they don't lose any commissions. For some reason, I got a parsing error when I applied it so I simply bought a redirect software called "EasyDirectScript" which has worked out perfectly for me, since I can control all my affiliate links from one panel.

Regardless, if your site has been affected by the Panda Updates, check your site to see if you have any of these small (meta http-equiv="refresh") redirect pages or links on your site. Delete them or just use the naked affiliate link to keep Google and the Panda happy.

In Conclusion: I am not finished with Panda yet and Panda is not finished with my sites... Google is still making changes under the Panda framework. It will be a constant battle to keep your site or sites to the highest standard possible in order to keep it ranking in Google. Supplying new superior content and removing any inferior pages will be the Ultimate Key to pleasing the Panda over the long haul. Present all this great content on an easy to navigate site which enhances the user's experience and maybe the Panda will be gone for good.

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Who Died And Made Google God? (Soapbox Article)

...

All views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are solely those of the author who is a full time online affiliate marketer. He earns a living by ranking high in the search engines for lucrative keywords. His main site offers Free Guides on everything associated with running a business from Corporate Business Gifts to Online Fax Providers to Internet Marketing Tools. Titus Hoskins Copyright.







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Titus HoskinsMy name is Titus Hoskins and I am an artist, writer and webmaster. I am also a former art teacher who has been a full-time Online Professional Marketer for the last 10 years.

Bizwaremagic.com is my main website, but I have many more. You can follow me on Twitter or Linkedin.



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