google

Panda 4.1 Analysis and Findings – Affiliate Marketing, Keyword Stuffing, Security Warnings, and Deception Prevalent

On Tuesday, September 23, Google began rolling out a new Panda update. Pierre Far from Google announced the update on Google+ (on Thursday) and explained that some new signals have been added to Panda (based on user and webmaster feedback). The latter point is worth its own blog post, but that’s the not the focus … Read more

Google Panda Running Regularly Since P4.0, Approaches Near-Real-Time

In June of 2013 I wrote about the maturing of Google’s Panda algorithm and how it started to roll out monthly over a ten day period. Google also explained at that time that they wouldn’t be confirming future Panda updates. In my post, I explained how the combination of monthly updates, over ten days, with … Read more

Affiliate Marketer Attacked by Panda 4.0 Sees Temporary Recovery, Gets Hit Again 5 Days Later [Case Study]

Panda 4.0 arrived in late May with a fury not seen by many previous updates. It was a HUGE update and many sites were decimated by P4.0. Most businesses reaching out to me after the May 20 update saw drops of 50%+, with some losing 80% of their Google organic search traffic overnight. And on … Read more

How To Get More Links, Crawl Errors, and Search Queries By Verifying Directories in Google Search Console (GSC)

{Updated on 2/8/16 to reflect the name change from Google Webmaster Tools to Google Search Console.} In my opinion, it’s critically important to verify your website in Google Search Console (GSC). By doing so, you can receive information directly from Google as it crawls and indexes your website. There are many reports in GWT that can … Read more

Panda, Penguin, and Manual Actions – Questions, Tips, and Recommendations From My SES Atlanta Session

{Important Update About Penguin: Read John Mueller’s latest comments about the Penguin algorithm.} I just returned from SES Atlanta, where I presented “How To Avoid and Recover From Panda, Penguin, and Manual Actions”. The conference was outstanding, included a killer keynote by Duane Forrester and sessions packed with valuable information about SEO and SEM. By … Read more

Panda 4.0 Case Study – Thin Content, Deception, Mobile Redirects, and The Danger of the Wrong Content Strategy

After Panda 4.0 rolled out, I analyzed many cases of both strong recoveries and severe fresh hits.  Based on analyzing over 40 websites hit by P4.0, I wrote two blog posts detailing my findings.  You can find my initial findings on my blog and then additional P4.0 findings in my Search Engine Watch column. I … Read more

Panda 4.0 Analysis | Nuclear Option Rewarded, Phantom Victims Recover, and Industry Experts Rise

On May 20th, 2014 Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Panda 4.0 was rolling out.  Leading up to that tweet, there was a lot of chatter across the industry about an algorithm update rolling out (based on reports of rankings volatility and traffic gains/losses).  I was also seeing lots of movement across clients that had been … Read more

April 2014 Google Algorithm Updates Heavily Targeted Song Lyrics and MP3 Websites (4/05 and 4/18)

Summary: Google has rolled out multiple algorithm updates in April that heavily impacted song lyrics and mp3 websites. This post provides more information about those updates, documents specific sites that were hit, and provides some possible problems that the algo targeted. I plan to update this post as I analyze more sites impacted by the … Read more

I’m Speaking at the Weber Shandwick Data Salon on April 24th – Learn About Google Algorithm Updates, Manual Penalties, and More

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at the Weber Shandwick Data Salon on Thursday, April 24th in New York City (from 6:00PM to 7:30PM).  Each month, Weber Shandwick invites leaders from various areas of digital marketing to speak, to spark conversation, and to share ideas.  I’m thrilled to be presenting next week to … Read more

Did the Softer Panda Update Arrive on March 24, 2014? SMBs Showing Modest Recovery Across Industries

As a consultant helping a number of companies with Panda recovery, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the March Panda update.  Based on the data I have access to, I was able to pick up and analyze Panda UJan14, UFeb14, and the infamous UFeb14Rev (where Google re-rolled out the algorithm update after mistakenly hammering movie blogs).  Needless … Read more