Did Google Panda 4.0 Go After Press Release Sites?

Nine days ago when Google released Panda 4.0 – which aims to filter out “thin” content from top rankings – we focused our attention on the big Winners & Losers charts, Since then, some have noted that press releases may have also been hit big time.

Using SearchMetrics, I looked at the top Press Release sites and checked if they lost any SEO visibility on a large scale since Panda 4.0 hit, and PRWeb.com, PR Newswire, BusinessWire and PRLog all seem to have lost significant rankings in Google.

PRNewsWire.com seems to have shown a significant drop in SEO visibility, dropping ~63% after Panda 4.0 was released:

PRWeb.com, another major press release distribution web site, also saw a huge drop, ~71%:

BusinessWire.com saw a ~60% drop after Panda:

PRLog.org saw a big drop in mid 2013 but then another dip right after this past Panda update:

Sean Malseed from SEER Interactive used SEM Rush metrics to document a lot of the same patterns I documented with SearchMetrics data. They also documented specific cases, of specific press releases that recently ranked well and now are no longer on the first page.

Only Losers Really Know If They Lost

As we said in the Winners and Losers report, lists like this aren’t perfect. The sites above may have had gains and drops for other reasons; less visibility this week because last week they were visible for different news stories, for example.

It’s also worth remembering that this is a sample of search terms. The only way to really know if any update has hurt or helped you is to look at your search-driven traffic from Google, rather than particular rankings or lists like this, which have become popular after Google updates. If you’ve seen a significant increase, you’ve probably been rewarded by it. A big decrease? Then you were probably hit.

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How to Recover a Business From a Google Panda 4.0 Penalty

What is Panda and Panda 4.0?

Panda is a quality algorithm released in 2011 which is designed to reward sites with high quality content, and bring down sites with low quality content. Affected sites with low quality content will receive a noticeable reduction in traffic. Panda 4.0 has been given the “4.0” designation which tells us that it is a more significant update that the most recent Panda updates.

How big is the Panda 4.0 Update?

Matt Cutts just announced the update on Twitter a few hours ago. It will be days or even weeks before we can thoroughly grasp the full affects of the Panda 4.0 update. If you are a business owner and log in to your Google Analytics accounts next week and are seeing a drastic reduction in traffic starting around May 20, 2014 or shortly thereafter then you have been hit with Panda 4.0.

How do you recover from a Panda 4.0 penalty?

Backlinks and onsite/technical SEO aside, ranking in Google search today is not that much different than it was a decade ago, especially for competitive niches. Anyone telling you otherwise is probably not ranking in search themselves. Unique and quality content always wins in the long run. I have personally generated several million dollars in sales via ranking content in search and people that haven’t experienced this have a difficult time comprehending the value of content. Back in the pre-WWW days people visited online services for what they offered or visited online services for a specific reason. These days Google is attempting to weed through mountains of spam, scraper sites and spun articles to deliver relevant search results and quality content to its users via algorithms. Will user input one day affect search? It will have to. But right now consistently generating quality content for your website is what it takes to rank in search and is what it will take to recover from a Panda 4.0 penalty.

Sites hit by Panda 4.0 will have no warning in their Webmaster tools account as this is an algorithm change. Some websites will need to start blogging and adding consistent and quality content to their site. Others will need to completely scrap their site and start a new one- that is harsh news but necessary in many cases as algorithm updates usually affect entire domains.

Recovering from a Panda update is simple. Your new website should be a WordPress site using a responsive theme and you need to be putting out quality content on your blog on a regular basis. Site owners can rest assured their websites are safe and even look forward to future algorithm changes.

How do I create Panda friendly content?

Your content should always be geared towards informing your audience. When I am creating content for my clients I pretend Google doesn’t exist. Every personal injury attorney has a page on car accidents, and every optometrist has a page on eye exams. My slogan is to “take your content one step further”. Traditional SEO companies want to optimize your car accident page and charge you a huge recurring fee. Content writers and real SEOs do not concentrate on one page about car accidents- they elaborate and discuss the value of your left hand, how getting rear ended by a truck is negligence, how a Toyota Prius holds up against a big rig and how long a lawsuit takes to complete. This type of content can be created for anyone including cake designers, plumbers, wardrobe consultants, IT professionals, funeral directors, etc, you name it. Pandas are cute animals that want lots of quality bamboo, just feed the Panda.

Do you need help recovering from Panda 4.0?

My best clients have come to me via word of mouth. Most of them have been burned by an “SEO firm”. Fortunately, I do not have to go around beating on doors and harassing business owners with ridiculous, misleading or deceptive sales pitches and I sleep quite well at night knowing that I’m providing an outstanding return on investment. I owned a brick and mortar business for 12 years which was successful due to its content and I have also experienced the benefits of ranking in search since the days of Excite and AltaVista. I am easily able to assist business owners with their SEO and content creation needs. Some of the best content creators out there are business owners that are experts in their niche, however, for 95% of them they are better off hiring someone that specializes in ranking in search and creating high quality content that is not penalized by Google updates, but is rewarded by them. If you need this type of assistance be sure to visit my page on copywriting and content creation to see how content can help your business.

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Panda 4.0: Why eBay Just Lost 80% of its Organic Rankings?

Poor eBay – they're having a pretty bad day. Thanks to Google’s roll-out of Panda 4.0 and the Payday Loan 2.0 update, eBay is suffering a massive loss in organic traffic and rankings. Adding insult to injury, they had to ask all users to change their passwords after a database hack.

Matt Cutts kicked off the SEO hysteria yesterday as he often does, with a tweet:

First released in 2011, Panda is a component of the organic search ranking algorithm designed to weed out low-quality sites, or those with "thin content." In its initial release, Panda affected approximately 12% of all search queries – by March 2013, Google had refreshed Panda 25 times, making it a constant source of aggravation in SEO circles.

This update is particularly worrisome for webmasters, given that Google had stopped announcing Panda updates/refreshes. At SMX West in March last year, Cutts said Panda would become a rolling, monthly update. Since he actually announced Panda 4.0, this seems to signal a major change to the algorithm – more than just a data refresh.

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Google Begins Rolling Out Panda 4.0 Now

Google’s Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they have released version 4.0 of the Google Panda algorithm.

Google’s Panda algorithm is designed to prevent sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results.

But didn’t Google stop updating us on Panda refreshes and updates since they are monthly rolling updates? Yes, but this is a bigger update.

Panda 4.0 must be a major update to the actual algorithm versus just a data refresh. Meaning, Google has made changes to how Panda identifies sites and has released a new version of the algorithm today.

Is this the softer and gentler Panda algorithm? From talking to Google, it sounds like this update will be gentler for some sites, and lay the groundwork for future changes in that direction.

Google told us that Panda 4.0 affects different languages to different degrees. In English for example, the impact is ~7.5% of queries that are affected to a degree that a regular user might notice. 

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