Latest Panda rewards fresh content

1. 87

   Marisa Wrightposted 12 years ago

   I was shocked to get back from vacation and find my best-performing website, which has survived every Panda update till now, had suddenly lost 46% of its traffic overnight.
   
   Turns out there was a Panda update in November:
   
   November, 2011: Google's Algorithm Now Rewards Freshness of Content, Impacting 35% of Search Queries
   
   http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307 … z1fdHOQXF7
   
   My website isn't a blog, it's a website with solid evergreen content - there's been no need for me to update any of the material because it doesn't change.  But it looks like I've been slugged because I don't have "fresh" content. 
   
   Does this mean that from now on, if we want to keep our traffic we have to keep on constantly adding new stuff?

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   1. 79

      QuestionMasterposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Oh that's just great. Why does Google spend so much time stuffing up things instead of figuring out a way to fight the real culprits - spinners, spammers and thieves?

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      1. 0

         paxwillposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Really! Google would better server searchers by developing an algorithm that could detect spun text, broken English, and short choppy sentences--hallmarks of junk websites that clog up search results.  If I want to read about the history of poker or how to rewire a light, I don't care if the web page was created in 2005 or 2011.
         
         It should be easy peasy for Google to detect and annihilate scraper sites, and yet there's an Indonesian site scraping one of my blogs regularly AND outranking me.

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2. 87

   Ms Deeposted 12 years ago

   Oh, dear! I hope this does not mean the definition of what is evergreen content has changed. Since Nov 19, my traffic has all the sudden gone down, too.

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3. 59

   mel22posted 12 years ago

   if that's the case then it will only benefit those writing about the latest Hollywood trend. No more passive income.You'll all have to work your a$$e$ off as papirazzi now to get paid

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4. 94

   thooghunposted 12 years ago

   I'm not overly impressed either. It seems less of a freshness update, and more of an authority update where authority is defined as the individual's ability to market and leverage social media rather than present factual and timely information.
   
   They said it themselves in the article: "We're forcing people to become good marketers". A freelance writer has neither the time, nor the manpower to realistically compete with even a small-sized business. Where does that leave us?
   
   Yup -- it forces us to resort to automation and other sketchy methods in order to have a chance at competing. Counterproductive.

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   1. 60

      couturepopcafeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It sounds like (suprise) Google is more less interested in writing talent and more interested in making money.  Hey, it got a president elected.  It's the way of the modern world.

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5. 90

   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   If it affecting 35% of queries that is a lot. At the same time your 'how to wire a plug' page should be safe.

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   1. 95

      wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I don't know, Will.  I've got lots of those kind of hubs, too, and they are slipping in the SERPs.  Not a lot, but sliding and I see it in total views.

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6. 95

   wildernessposted 12 years ago

   I, too, have seen a slide in views lately.  Not large, but definitely lower that it was.
   
   I pretty much stopped writing as I'm booked up with other things and wondered if that was the reason.  My traffic growth the past few months seemed to correlate pretty well with the number of new hubs, particularly in November.
   
   As others have asked, will this change the concept of evergreen?  I certainly hope not - I've tried hard to write mostly evergreen stuff that could be of value for years.

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7. 78

   skyfireposted 12 years ago

   Ping your content with superfeedr or hubbuspub so that your content gets indexed before scrapers use it to outrank you. Wordpress pings it automatically but you can use other services for ping. Blogger and Wordpress.com doesn't need ping AFAIK.

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   1. 88

      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      A lot of my older content is getting outranked by scraper sites even though mine were indexed first.
      
      It is just yet another sign of a plunged account. I think perhaps I have been sandboxed as the plunge happened about 3 weeks after the subdomains came in, which is a typical pattern of sandboxed domains. All those thousands of links suddenly showing up in a 'new' domain. This seems to have been the pattern for a lot of people, most of who no longer post on the forums.
      
      But getting back on topic, I see a lot of the 'success stories' hubbers on a recent downward plunge so the latest dip after the 'freshness' update came in does appear to be site-wide.

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8. 79

   QuestionMasterposted 12 years ago

   Would new comments on old content add much in Google's view of new content I wonder?

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9. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

   I would have sworn I read this thread a month ago, but the op is only 18 hours old. I guess it's time to go mess with my content again.

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10. 87

    Ms Deeposted 12 years ago

    Updating my comment here to say my traffic improved yesterday, though not quite up to what it had been. I'm thinking for now it could be the ups and downs of the holiday season.

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