Article for Panda Watchers

1. 39

   Spacey Graceyposted 12 years ago

   Anyone still glued to their screen searching for Panda progres may be interested in this article based on an interview with Matt Cutts.
   
   Please no posts saying 'stop worrying', 'I am so bored of this', 'blah blah blah'.
   
   I'm of to write some more stuff for my website and ponder my social marketing future over a cup of tea and a scone - cheerio, and toodle-loo.

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   1. 66

      Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I noticed in the article that it was mentioned how sites such as Library of Congress, Media sites and Newspaper sites greatly benefited from the Google change.
      Of course Media and Newspapers invest a lot of money for their online publication and are not happy for any competition.
      
      My issue with Media and Newspapers is they ALL duplicate the same story word for word and use auto-generated news.  This is what Google says it is against and then turn around and "rewards" those that pay to do exactly that!!! How hypocritical.

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   2. 87

      IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Does anyone else see a glimmer of hope here?
      
      "There is definitely still room for improvement in the space of low-quality content -- or in trying to reward higher-quality content." - Matt Cutts.

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      1. 0

         EmpressFelicityposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Sorry, but I can't see the stuff that this guy Cutts says as anything other than spin/PR.
         
         After all, he's hardly going to tell the truth is he?  Which would be something along the lines of "OK, so we've weeded out some of the spam, but we haven't replaced it with anything better and for a lot of people searching, it's actually worse."

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         1. 87

            IzzyMposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            This is true! Before, if I ever see or hear of a new virus I'd Google it, and there would be several mentions on the front page, especially for a new attack.
            Now you have to look several pages in to find something recent. The front page might mention it, but it'd be years out of date and with technology moving at the rate it does, old news on viruses is no use.

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            1. 66

               Michael Willisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Old and out-dated news/articles are the worst I am finding now on page 1 or even page 2 in Google simply because it is media, newspaper or such pages. It is a waste of user time.
               I had begun to use Google more, but have gone back to Yahoo for  web searches. Still have to weed through junk, but less duplicated and totally unrelated work by the "authoritative sites."

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2. 85

   CMHypnoposted 12 years ago

   Are they cherry scones, Spacey? If so I'm on my way! Does anyone know if HubPages is one of the sites that Blekko has totally blocked?

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3. 39

   Spacey Graceyposted 12 years ago

   Not today I'm afraid. Sainsbury's Cherry Scones are my absolute favourites (I am a 72 year old woman trapped in a 29 year old's body).
   
   I think very possibly Blekko have blocked HubPages - if you search 'any keyword site:hubpages' the results say no results on Blekko - then give some results from Bing.
   
   If you just search HubPages it brings up HP home as the top result then no other entry.

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   1. 0

      EmpressFelicityposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I managed to get a hub of mine to appear in Blekko's SERPS (or rather, in the Bing "additional results" section) - but only by entering its most popular search term in quote marks (and this is a hub that gets 100-200 views a day).  No quote marks, no hub. 
      
      Reading the article in your original post reminds me very strongly of the changes that eBay announced a couple of years back.  In their email to sellers, these changes were touted as a big improvement.  However, when you read the terms more carefully, they were only an "improvement" for people selling multiple, cheap items, because you could list any number of identical items for just one listing fee.  For anyone selling one-off/unique items, the "improvements" were anything but.
      
      It's the same with the Google algorithm change - the search "improvements" ARE improvements if your name happens to be [insert any large retailer here].  But they're not improvements for anyone else, including the poor general public trying to search for something relevant!

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   2. 85

      CMHypnoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      How very rude of Blekko and totally uncalled for!
      
      Have you tried the M&S cherry scones that are sold loose in the bakery section? They are my absolute favourites!

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4. 81

   skyfireposted 12 years ago

   Blekko is a slash tag based search engine that operates based on user contribution. ahem.. hint ?
   
   
   Stop Worrying

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   1. 39

      Spacey Graceyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I have no idea what that means but I'm not worried. I'm pretty sure they weren;t contributing to my traffic and are not reponsible for the 60% decline I have experienced.

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   2. 39

      Spacey Graceyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Lol - sorry only just got the 'stop worrying' bit - I'm a bit slow today, I think it is because I am a day older than I was yesterday.

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5. 39

   Spacey Graceyposted 12 years ago

   I have just been researching an article and the number 2 result on Google was: "Amazon.com: Hello Kitty - Squinkies: Toys & Games
   Amazon.com: Hello Kitty - Squinkies: Toys & Games.
   www.amazon.com/s?...Squinkies...n%3A165 … t..." - it is a search query results page with no relevant result on it!!!! It wasn't even a buy focussed query. 'Hello Kitty Squinkies' could be from anyone trying to find out if such a thing exists, when they will be released, what they look like etc etc - I know the search traffic for the term will be tiny but it doesnt seem write that Amazon search query pages with no relevant result should out rank genuinely useful articles, which I know exist because I have now found them.
   
   Grrrr.
   
   Rant over, and relax.

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6. 81

   skyfireposted 12 years ago

   Average joe is not using blekko because of it's complex nature. Current users of blekko are part of tech savvy crowd, so you can ignore them.

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   1. 39

      Spacey Graceyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks. I'm not called Spacey for nothing - so be careful with your techno-babble, I am very easily confused

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7. 64

   Bill Manningposted 12 years ago

   I've never even heard of blekko.

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8. 87

   rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

   Did you all see the recent HP blog? http://blog.hubpages.com/
   
   A Google Adsense employee is the guest blogger. It sounds promising to me.

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9. 39

   Spacey Graceyposted 12 years ago

   I am also finding so many popular, high ranking sites just cut and pasting a press release and literally adding nothing to it. Smaller sites, that do have something useful to add, but have affiliate links are not appearing until 2nd or 3rd page.
   
   Hope this improves soon as it is driving me nuts.

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10. 60

    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    A separate issue. With all the ads that are now missing from our hubs, it is getting darn hard to get a click. I hope they hurry up fixing that.

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