More Google Craziness!
We've got Pandas...and we've got Penguins.... and what's next? I dunno, I guess a Zebra. Google sure has this whole "back and white" thing going on.
Funny too, because it's only "black and white" to Google ;)
So what's the difference between a Panda and a Penguin (in the Google world)
Panda is purely a quality type thing. It's all about what's ON your site, how it is presented, and the quality of the content.
If you get a Panda Penalty, you have to make the corrections and then wait for Panda to come back by your site to (hopefully) remove the penalty. This happens about every 4-6 weeks. Last Panda update was on April 19th.
Now, Penguin, on the other hand, is different. It is about breaking Google's WebMaster Guidelines. It can be due to things you do ON your page or OFF your page. Where as Panda is about the actual quality and trust-worthiness of your content/site... Penguin is about things that Google considers 'spam' that are done to boost rankings.
Penguin ran on April 24th. If you were hit by Penguin, you will have seen an immediate/overnight change in your rankings.
I still can't get a concrete answer from the "powers that be" about whether Penguin needs to come back to your site to release the penalty or if it is naturally removed when the 'normal' Google algo comes back to your site.
In either case, my advice right now is... DO NOTHING MAJOR.
Google really pushed hard with this Penguin update. Many consider it the biggest update we've seen in years (yes, even bigger than Panda). Heck, Google even offers a form for those that truly believe that they were hit by Penguin and are totally innocent (note: don't use that form unless you KNOW... KNOW KNOW KNOW... you are totally innocent).
There is bound to be a lot of "flux" and tweaks to this Penguin situation by Google in the next week or so. If you go changing anything major, you'll have no clue if you made it worse, or better.
Now, if you have a good idea of what you probably did wrong, sure, go change it/correct it...but don't go nuts with changes right now.
When Google goes batty, a knee jerk reaction is the WORST thing you can do.
Jennifer
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Great post Jennifer!
I am starting to wonder why Google is naming their updates after animals that give you that "warm" feeling when you think of them. Like their updates, they should be choosing unpredictable animals (Google Rabid Monkey Update?).
People that are negatively affected should not panic and should not rip apart their sites too quickly. Website are disappearing for a day or so and coming back in much better positioning.
Some things that should have you concerned are:
(1) Mass backlinking campaigns
(2) Spun or junk content
(3) Keyword stuffed sites
If you have site that is riddled with this and your site happens to lose rankings, they may not be coming back until you update your site and get back on Google's good side.
Is it possible to 'get back on Google's good side"? I did quite a bit of blog network linking, and have seen some sites tank, and others not. The content of the sites are good, and I think everything else is in order - so do you think with time Google will kind of forget about those links or will my site forever be labeled as using 'unnatural linking strategies'.
You could report these links within Google Webmaster tools...Google is deeming these as unnatural links. If your content is quality and you continue to add quality content, you should be able to retain some rankings again, however once you have been red flagged you have to get out of the dog house. Either remove some of thel inks you have gotten or report some of them within GWT.
Thanks for the info Jen. Curious to know how you find out exactly when these updates occur?
The Internet is full of information...you will typically find out very quickly by hanging out here as well as people are reporting indexing shifts all the time...these typically correlate to a Panda or Penguin update. Panda usually runs every 3 months or so.
Thanks PPG. I was waiting for someone to say we should wait and see what happens. I've been waiting, with not much changes happening, and stressing. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. :)
Thanks for the advice Jennifer, I think it's a normal reaction to panic slightly and start making changes left right and centre to try and figure a way out of the hole. By the time you are done you may not even know what changes you made and Google may have slapped you even harder.
Seems as though Google updates while may be named after employees are also named after endangered animals
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I have a question then.. How if our competitor using a dirty moves like this? Competitor will blast our link using senuke, xrumer,scrapebox etc mass backlinking that will make us get banned by google. What can we do?