Google's Panda update - not so cute for some!

I’m not having a Google happy week so far because my main site The Weekly Gripe has had a bit of a run in with a giant Panda in the form of their latest SERP’s update. Who would have thunk it!? Still, this is a brief outburst just to kind of vent a bit. I’m not blaming anyone, except perhaps myself. I’ll just have to work harder that’s all!

I’m not going to say that I have been very lucky so far. As far as I’m concerned I have obeyed all the rules and created a site for visitors. I did that long before Google was on my radar in fact. It was a website for me, because I wanted to have a bloody good old moan about the trains as I was fed up getting work late every day.

These days work is my beloved website The Weekly Gripe, and for that I have of course Google to thank as their AdSense programme has made it possible for me to earn a living doing something I really enjoy; no, not moaning about the world and his mother, doing stuff on the Internet and being creative, well at least I think that’s what I’m doing. I really can’t complain because I love what I do and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This Panda update is quite interesting though. It seems as though they have gone after a lot of “article” type websites which basically means I’m in the line of fire. After all, gripes are effectively articles and they’re all pretty unique. The old “question and answer” type sites are annoying because they popped up everywhere and usually floated to the top of the search results. I think this update has been a tad vicious though, not least because it has affected me. Why the big tech blog sites were hit though is quite beyond me, and as for sites like eBay, Amazon and Argos getting a boost - that is quite frankly bordering on ridiculous. Please tell me that a bunch of engineers out there at Google made a very serious mistake?

Lots of pandas There’s nothing that a website owner can do to once they’ve been clubbed by the Panda update. That’s what Google will no doubt tell you that’s what I should be telling you now. But I’m not going to. Here’s what you CAN do.

You can do the same as me. You can quit your whining and accept the fact that the ball’s not swinging in your favour this time. You’ve had your britches pulled down in front of the home crowd so deal with it. Start writing some quality content (no this isn’t it, this is me sounding off!) and get back to what you were doing. You can start working on those other projects you’ve been putting off (I’ll be doing that) and you can focus on what’s important to YOU (I’ll be doing that too!). This might all sound like common sense stuff and it it might also sound like useless advice, but what has really happened? You need to listen up really close to this next bit because it’s very, very important.

It’s an algorithm change on a search engine. There are other search engines. Google is JUST as responsible for keeping visitors happy as YOU are. If they screw up with a bad algo change, people will toddle off and use Bing instead. They’d be a little bit mad to do that because it’s really not as good a search engine (my opinion). But people will vote with their feet if they don’t like what they see - end of story. So if they’re happy with the results then that means it was a good change. If your site has gone down in the SERPS then maybe (like me) you’ve got some work to do to make things right. I personally don’t think I deserve this hit. But I’ll take it on the chin like a man anyway. I’m Scottish, we do that where I come from. Right. Rant over, go make good content and get back to where you were (advice to me too!).

This diatribe will probably be penalized in Google’s next update designed to kill off all the moaning old gits who go on and on!

Google's Panda update - not so cute for some!

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