The other day Google released yet another Google Panda update. Panda
3.3, 3.4 or maybe it was even panda 3.5? Soon after they released what
they’re calling the “webspam algorithm update” which they later named
the “Google Penguin Update”.
The specific names don’t really matter; what matters is how they
affect you. (Quick Note: this post isn’t about panda/penguin specifics,
it’s about Google, algorithm changes and the future of online marketing –
a little more generic)
According to Google, the last public update was Panda 3.4 which they
officially launched on March 23. But since then there’s been a dramatic
change in the algorithm. A change that was supposedly designed to fight
spam and improve the quality of search results. (The damn Penguin)
Unfortunately, the Penguin update has been the last nail in the
coffin for thousands of people around the globe. A month or so ago I
wrote a post about a previous Panda update that was said to affect just
1% of search queries.
At the time hundreds of thousands of webmasters around the world
proved that statistic to be very wrong. The results were catastrophic.
And now… Matt Cutts has said this update will “only affect 3% of search
queries”. To that I say what a load of BS.
If you log on to any online marketing related forum or even the
Google Webmaster’s forum itself, you’ll find thousands upon thousands of
webmasters complaining about this update. It was supposed to target
sites that were keyword stuffing and using other dodgy black hat
tactics. (It has and hasn’t)
When really all its done is brought terrible results to the top of
Google and pushed great websites to the bottom. Ok – so it has done some
good. Many great sites have risen, but countless others have lost their
rankings. In my opinion collateral damage is not ok.
Google has pushed all the BRANDS to the top. Brand sites are now
dominating, more so than ever before. And the big thing that’s got so
many marketers outraged is this: niche sites have been killed.
Really, there are only three types of sites. (Minus article directories and web2.0’s)
- Brands
- Niche Sites
- Authority Sites
As you probably already know, a huge percentage of Internet Marketers
make their money from niche sites. Niche sites are generally sites that
are built to make money. So it seems Google is out to destroy our
incomes and improve search results too?
All jokes aside… Niche sites are typically sites built around a
single topic and most of the time they are between 10 and 300 pages.
The problem is a lot of niche sites are full of terrible content.
Usually they are 5-10 page sites built for the sole purpose of ranking
for 1-10 keywords and making a small profit. Internet Marketers have
been building these sites for years because they are guaranteed earners.
Over the past few years however, marketers have gotten lazy and built
terrible websites full of outsourced content they know nothing about.
Most of those sites have been hit, which is fair enough. But what about
the excellent niche sites? What about the sites with 10-300 pages of
superb content that genuinely helps people?
Yep – those sites have also been crushed which makes me furious. The
funny thing is, black hat SEO’s have been badly penalized. Which is fair
enough to a degree. I believe that webmasters should be able to use
whatever SEO they like to blast their sites to the top; just as long as
they provide value and deserve to rank there.
It’s not just niche sites that have been hit, individual blogs and small businesses have also been destroyed.
The problem is it’s so damn random. Countless white hat SEO users
have been hit. People who’ve followed Google’s rules to the T; they’ve
been spanked. I was actually talking to a woman the other day who spent 4
years of her life building a health and beauty blog.
The blog had over 600 pages of excellent content. After this update
she practically lost every single ranking and her traffic came to a
halt… literally overnight. Not cool at all Google…
So niche sites have been penalized badly and thrown to the bottom of
the pile. They are ranking in third place despite their individual
quality or link profiles. Next authority sites. It’s kind of difficult
to define authority sites as they are essentially big niche websites.
Authority sites are enormous sites that specialize in one broad
topic. Sites that cover everything on a topic and generally have
excellent content. There’s a fine line between authority sites and brand
sites. Authority sites as of this last update, have been placed below
brand sites.
I used to have a couple of authority sites in obscure niches, they
each had 300+ blog posts and were incredible resources for their
visitors. I used white hat SEO on them in terms of link building.
Obviously white hat link building doesn’t technically exist. But it’s
what I call white hat link building…
I built manual backlinks using the 1 article = 1 backlink principle.
I only did guest blogging, article marketing, web2.0’s and social
bookmarking + social signals. While those sites haven’t been sandboxed
or thrown to the bottom, they’ve lost a crap load of traffic. All
because of Google’s stupid algorithm changes, especially the damn
penguin.
My point is, even though those sites followed the rules to the T;
they’ve lost a load of traffic and rankings. Which to me is completely
unfair. So niche sites have been killed off big time and so have
authority sites. The majority of medium to large authority sites have
lost a substantial percentage of their traffic if not all.
The problem is this; it never seems like Google targets certain
websites. Small sites, big sites, sites using black hat SEO and sites
using white hat SEO – they all get hit. Many awful sites seem to just
slip through the cracks and even thrive while others get demolished.
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