google's panda - a case study

Jonathan StewartHead of Search & Social Media

www.reviewcentre.comjonathan@reviewcentre.comhttp://twitter.com/jonaths

Google’s Panda – A Case Study

What I’m Going To Talk About(1) What is Panda?(2) How it affected Review Centre(3) The actions we took(4) The results(5) Other observations

How to Pour Water From a Pitcher

“An algorithmic improvement designed to help people find more high-quality sites in search”Amit Singhal

Panda Timeline

Panda 1.0

Panda 2.0

Panda 2.1

Panda 2.2

Panda 2.3Feb 24th

April 11th

May 10th

June 16th

July 23rd

Search Metrics

“Reviewcentre.com is in absolute numbers the biggest loser”Search Metrics

“You’re not a good SEO until you’ve been hit by a penalty.

A real big one.”

• User Metrics–Aggressive ads–Poor Site Design

•Weak Content

Panda Theories

Panda Effect

• Sitewide penalty–All pages effected–EXCEPT forum pages

• Short-tail, generic KWs hit hardest

• “Review” KWs not hit

Panda Effect

• KWs Including “review”

• KWs Excluding “review”

• Google UK traffic

What Did We Do?

• Site Redesign• Decreased Ad Density• Improved Social Sharing• Noindexed Weak Content• Removed Duplicate Content

New Website Design

New Website Design

Noindex• “In cases like this, Google’s Maile Ohye

recommended using a <meta name=robots content=noindex> …until they have unique and high-quality content on them.”

Removed Duplicate Content

The Panda Cycle

Google Crawls

Changes

Google Reruns Panda

Make Changes

4 weeks 6 weeks

5 weeks~4 months

Results• Went live on the 25th May• July 27th reverted to previous Adsense layout

• We’ve seen no reversal of Panda

23 Questions of DoomWould you trust the information presented in this article?

Is this article written by an expert…, or is it more shallow in nature?Does this article have

spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?How much quality control is done on content?Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators?

Was the article edited well?

Cumulative Panda Theory

Review Centre Tripadvisor05

101520253035404550

Pand

a Sc

ore

Websites

Review Centre Tripadvisor05

101520253035404550

Cumulative Panda TheoryWould you trust the information presented in this article?

Pand

a Sc

ore

Websites

Review Centre Tripadvisor05

101520253035404550

Cumulative Panda TheoryWas the article edited well?

Pand

a Sc

ore

Websites

Review Centre Tripadvisor05

101520253035404550

Cumulative Panda TheoryWould you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?

Pand

a Sc

ore

Websites

Recap• Actions we took– Site Redesign– Blocked Weak Pages– Removed Duplicate Content

• 3 months on - no return from Panda!• Reducing Adsense– No Impact After 2 months

• What next?– Consolidating Content

Panda Resources• Google’s 23 Questions for Pandalized Websites• Is Panda Crushing Your Website• The Panda in the Room• Google Usage of User Engagement Metrics• Panda – Nothing Seems to Work• Panda Slapped Quality Sites• Traffic Trends for Pandalized Sites• DaniWeb – 110% Recovery• Google Panda Update Recovery