joi, 14 aprilie 2011

SEOptimise

30+ Google Quality/Panda Update Resources for Content Farmers and SEO Practitioners

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 03:47 AM PDT

panda *

After watching the SEO industry debating the Google Panda or Content Farmer update as it was initially dubbed for weeks and now that the update has hit the UK as well I decided to compile a list of the most important resources on it.

This update seems to have hit far more SEO practicioners than average webmasters, that might be one of the reasons for the popularity of the topic.

Google itself says that 12% of search results have been impacted initially while in a survey 40% of US SEO practicioners admitted they have lost traffic in the update aftermath.

Content farmers have been hit but not all of them, the content farm that was the reason for the discussion on content farms got away unscathed. Demand Media’s eHow thrives even better than before. Why? It wasn’t really a content farms update.

It was a quality update as Google itself refers to it. Thus all kinds of sites have been affected even legit sites not following the content farm business model at all. Some of them have been reinstated after a public outcry though so it seems to be a good idea to ask your PR department for help when your rankings plummeted.

On the flip side it’s quite obvious what leads to rankings drops and what not do in order to stay on top in Google’s results in 2011.

Do not scrape or copy content from other websites.
Do not “spin” content using automated software that garbles it to the point where it’s understandable anymore.
Do not let ads dominate your site visually
Focus on quality content not quantity or sheer size.

Additionally I have already written how not to appear like a content farm.

OK, most of these aspects of this update have been covered already so I don’t have to repeat it. Instead check out these 30+ Google quality/panda update resources for content farmers and SEO practitioners.

Make sure not to miss the links to the UK specific statistics at the bottom.

Definition and overview

Reasons for ranking losses

Techniques to deal with the update

Issues apparent after the update

Analysis

Statistics and analytics

So you see, not only content farmers should care but those who defined the term weren’t affected as expected. So the Demand Media business model of content farming is far from gone. It just entered the next phase. More importantly