Since having this blog, I’ve reported several times how Google Panda took a couple of swipes at my websites in 2011. Every time I was in a tailspin of worry and doubt – being somewhat new to the game, despite what my friend Michelle counsels in her emails and comments:

It’ll bounce back…give it time…

And let’s face it – it makes for a fun read. My most popular blog posts tend to be my “What is Google doing now?” posts, because frankly nobody but Google knows for sure.

Well something I didn’t really report too well on, because I don’t want to be an alarmist, is that around Christmas of 2011, Google Panda struck again…it’s not the first time.

Check this out from May-June of 2011:

Google Panda in June 2011

Google Panda Heart Attack

 

That dip cost me about $2k-$5k in income, which is no skin off Google’s back – but it also dipped into my savings. That was the worst I’ve felt the effects of Google Panda, and it was confusing since scraper sites were out-ranking mine.

Granted, in Google, so long as you re-write what you scrape – which my scrapers did – then you can still rank as well as “original content.” But of course, Google is concerned about quality results, right?

Don’t kid yourself. Anyway, the reality is that “smart scrapers” took my best-performing site and scraped and re-wrote my content, and I thought they were gone for good…but actually they’re ranking just fine these days.

The point of the story though is to show you what my recent dip did in December:

Google Panda December 2011

Google Panda Sandbox December 23 2011

I haven’t had much time to dwell on the decline in rankings but let me say that I’m pretty much done biting my nails. This is at least the third time in one calendar year where I saw the effects of Google’s Panda update.

Every time I’ve seen these drop in rankings, they come back on their own. 

During this most recent development, where several pages tanked on my site (and this time it was a different set of web pages, with a few exceptions), I wasn’t worried: I was making plenty of sales on the site.

It finished 2011 strong, despite having lost rankings at the tail end of December – only to bounce back as strong as ever the first week of January, 2012.

How I Beat Google Panda

Simple. I took my own advice in Duct Tape SEO. I have strong on-page SEO, without sounding like it. I mean I don’t do the typical keyword stuffing everyone suggests is what makes for good SEO.

It’s in the book. :)

But the other thing I did: nothing. 

  • I didn’t build links.
  • I didn’t panic.
  • I didn’t ask Google for a re-inclusion via Google Webmaster Tools.
  • I didn’t hire some spammer on Fiverr to hit me with 100,000 useless links.
  • I didn’t call the president to ask Congress to declare war on Google.
  • I didn’t occupy Google or Wall Street.

I kept my head together and did the unthinkable:

I kept writing my latest book – which is done but for the final edits and finishing touches. I literally did nothing but check rankings with Market Samurai.

After being Panda-attacked a few times in 2011, I realize they “do” this:

  • At some point, your site will be tagged by some bot – and I’m not sure if there’s a way to avoid getting tagged for inspection, but this is my suspicion.
  • Every site tagged by the Panda-bot (for lack of a better term) gets inspected by the algorithm.
  • For whatever reason, tagged sites will be sandboxed and other sites take their place in the SERPs.
  • If no better replacement is found, the site returns to its former place.

What evidence do I have for this process? Not much but plenty of reading and watching my own websites behave in weird ways. For whatever reason, my sites come back every time.

So might I be doing something wrong to trigger the inspection?

Is there such an inspection?

Honestly I’m not sure, but I do know that I have many sites that aren’t affected – ever – by Panda. But my main earner gets tagged 3 times a year – maybe more in future, maybe never again, who knows.

Time will tell.

What I recommend:

Don’t panic. Find some other progress to make or build links.

Every time I got hit, except the first time when I removed AdSense and some affiliate links (reducing the number of affiliate links on every page to about 3-5 tops) – I did nothing and the site came back just fine or did better.

And every single time, the site either gained PageRank or remained the same.

I know that Google runs Panda before PageRank updates, at least that’s the 2011 pattern, and every time I got hit I’d check other forums or blogs and sure enough: it was widespread. Google hits a number of sites with this “sandbox” effect and the sites either die a cruel death never to return or they bounce back.

How do you make sure you site bounces back? I’m not sure, really, other than I strongly recommend my book Duct Tape SEO for a content quality standard.

Why toot my own horn? Because I found out what Google wants and I give it to them. I’m not worried about Panda. It’s an inconvenience, but not the death of my business by any stretch.

Get Your Discount for My WordPress SEO Book, Duct Tape SEO – Panda-Proof and Proven Rankings:

(Use Discount Code “Happy2012″ At Checkout)

(That was subtle, right?)

I’m not sure what Google has in store for 2012, but I’m not too worried any more. Honestly I’m not much for building thousands of links, and when it comes down to it, if I need to do that, I’m set with tools and what works.

If Google dropped off the face of the planet, and my traffic went with it – it would just be a matter of time to replace that traffic with various other traffic resources that don’t depend on Google.

What I’ve Been Up To

Some of you have been kind enough to wonder: why have I dropped off the face of the planet lately? Since I know there are at least 4 people that read this, I owe you an explanation:

  • Writing my new book as methodically as I wrote Duct Tape SEO, but this one’s on making money online. It’s going to be much cheaper than you might expect, too. Trying something different.
  • Playing Modern Warfare 3 on my son’s XBox and trying not to get too hooked. It doesn’t have zombie maps so whatev’s…and I clearly have a life (read: I am the world’s worst player apparently).
  • Celebrating 3 January birthdays (2 y/o son, 4 and 6 y/o daughters).
  • Enjoying visiting family (sister-in-law, she’s fantastic).
  • Filing plenty of DMCA requests and getting pages de-indexed from Google. Suckas. By the way, Google makes it painless to do, have to give it to them: they rock at de-indexing piracy…

I had a great end of year in terms of earnings, so I’m fighting the itinerant lazy-bones effect (I did this my senior year in high school, too…you know you’re going to pass so why try? – it’s pathetic, really).

But this book is hopefully going to help people make some serious money online, and I want my latest book to be a solid offering. I’m pretty picky with content…

So that’s what I’ve been doing lately. Now getting back to the main point of this post:

Lesson: Don’t Sweat Panda

It’s really not that scary. Honestly. Sure: Google can jack your traffic for a while, but they don’t own web traffic – anyone depending solely on SEO traffic should diversify traffic sources – but if you build sites properly to begin with you should have little to worry about.

Of course not everyone is going to be as “lucky” as I am…but I don’t think it’s luck any more.

I can’t guarantee that my methods will keep Panda at bay, but if you follow them, your sites should stand a better chance in my opinion.

If you do get “Pandalized,” then wait about 3-4 weeks before really worrying about it. You shouldn’t just have one site making you cheddar anyway, just MHO.

I’ve got a book to write, be back shortly I think…Thanks for reading.

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