Unless you live in a cave or under a rock then you are probably aware of the so-called Google Panda Update (also known as the Farmer Update). Anyway this update has shaken the search engine world to its core. A lot of major sites have in essence been given the dreaded Google Slap but more of that later on.
Closer to home (home being the internet marketing world) the panda update has cause quite a significant shuffle to the contenders vying for the coveted Google Page One listing for the keyword term, make money online.
The biggest loser that I recognized has been the marketing wunderkind otherwise known as the The Kid Blogger. The Kid Blogger’s blog had retained the coveted page one listing and indeed the crème de la crème spot of being the first and foremost listing on Google for the keyword make money online for at least the last 4 years.
Thus it comes with considerable shock (not least of all I am sure to The Blogger Kid himself) that his blog has been dramatically G-slapped all the way down to Page Five for the term! Why this has happened I cannot really say but then again since I am not above wanton speculation I will say my 2 cents’ worth.
Lately I have noticed that there has been more than usual activity on the Blogger Kid’s blog with respect to posting. Now conventional wisdom would suggest that The Notorious Goog would appreciate new content and reward its author with enhanced exposure on the SERPs for various keywords. But we all know about conventional wisdom and its ilk…don’t we?
From personal experience I know that Google tend s to have an illogical and negative knee-jerk reaction to a flurry of posting activity especially when it follows a general period of little to no activity. The negative aspect of this knee-jerk reaction is to have your website or blog temporarily demoted on the search engine indexes but usually after a couple of days one’s listing bounces back and more often than not your listing would have even been promoted!
This has happened to me several times. I start reposting to a previously senescent blog that mysteriously but invariably had somehow ascended the Google Index for multiple keywords with its inevitable influx of increased web traffic, to have it viciously slapped down for those multiple keywords on the SERPs. Strange huh? You go figure. But this has happened often. However as I said the system usually recalibrates itself and my blog regains its prior exposure on the SERPs in a day or two, but more often than not it finds itself better listed for those targeted keywords. Just a hiccup in the system!
As so often happens there is always an exception to the rule. Whenever my website has been G-slapped for multiple keyword terms, there is one keyword that I have never, ever lost placement or ranking for. I have listed on Google Page One for this term for the last five years and indeed most often I have been the very top and foremost listing. And thus alas I think that the Kid Blogger is in a more precarious situation than a mere recalibration of the system. Me doth believe he is one of the many victims of the Panda Update. But why really did his blog fall from grace?
Deadly Execution By Chrome Users
Well apparently the expansion of the Panda Update included data from Chrome users who had availed themselves of the option of blocking certain sites they were dissatisfied with for a particular search. When I read about this my first reaction was one of alarm because the first thing that springs to mind is the opportunity for abuse! Imagine a community of marketers ganging up on you and spreading the word that fellow marketers should block your website listing on their browser?
Deadly stuff huh? Luckily this feature only works with Google’s own Chrome browser and seeing that only 13% of my web traffic is via Chrome users I am not unduly worried? Besides I think that market-minded individuals are more likely to use the FireFox browser because honestly it is a better browser…anyway as far as I am concerned!
Do You Need To Pay Homage To Google To Stay On Top?
Anyway comparing the Kid Blogger’s demoted blog to the number one listing for the keywords make money online and make money I noticed a very significant difference. Aside from the fact that www.101waystomakemoney is heavily keyword stuffed with 52 occurrences of the keyword make money on its homepage, they also have a rather heavy presence of Google Adsense Ads! Perhaps that is the big mistake that the Kid Blogger made, not paying due homage to the search deity that was sending him all that web traffic.
After all, if as some people contend, that the Panda Update was targeting websites with a heavy advert presence then if such were the case 101waystomakemoney would have been equally demoted because it has even more Ads than Kid Blogger’s blog! But the guys at 101waystomakemoney were wise enough to appease the search engine god by ensuring that Google profited from the immense web traffic that their excellently-listed blog gets by plastering it with more than enough Adsense Ads that ensured that Google turned a blind eye to their keyword stuffing scheme and whatever else.
Interestingly enough some of the Panda Update ripples that support this theory are the manner in which The Goog increased exposure and visibility of its 2 websites, Blogspot.com and YouTube.com while viciously G-slapping Yahoo’s Associated Content website resulting in an 82% drop in visibility and exposure to that site!
