Google Panda Update Scheduled March 15th, 2013

Matt Cutts, Distinguished Engineer at Google, announced yet another Panda update is scheduled to hit on Friday March 15th, 2013, or Monday March 18th 2013. This would be the 25th Panda roll out since February 2011. In addition, Matt mentioned that Google will launch is 4th major Penguin update this year, stating that it will be significant enough to cause major discussions.

Matt also confirmed that Google targeted another link network a couple weeks ago, and says they will release another one within the next week or two.

Wondering when next Google panda update is going to rolled out ? Well guys its very near and you should start wondering what effects this new Google panda update going to put on your websites and all SEO work you have done till now.  According to news In SMX West panel, Matt Cutts head of web spam announced that the team of Google web spam working hard to provide best search results. To keep filtering process going on between bad and good websites, most probably a Google Panda update is going to take place on Friday 15 March 2013 or Monday 18 March 2013.

If this Google panda update rolled out on these given dates than this will be official Google algorithm panda update #25. The last official Google panda update #24 was rolled out in early January on 22nd January 2013. In #24 Google panda update, it has affected almost 1.2 % of English Search queries and we can see same kind of affected English search queries in this coming latest Google panda update on 15 March 2013 or 18 March 2013.

Lets wait and watch what Google is going to do in coming days with its algorithm updates. We hope this time Google will filter the results by keeping original Google panda filtering system, as in last couple of Google algorithm updates specially the Google panda updates did not come out with the best results. We have seen that after Google panda update the bad content or no content website take place top spots in Google search results and Good quality websites having good page rank loose their rankings in Google SERP results.

Will confirm you guys as Google makes an official statement for this Google panda update #25, if it takes place on given dates. Till than just keep an eye on your search engine rankings and keep your website updating with some great and quality stuff.

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Google Cutts: Links From Press Releases Won't Help

An old fashion and sometimes often used method today, to get links to your web site, is to use press releases with embedded links in those releases.

So you'd contract a press release distribution company and make sure that the content of the release have links to your web site. That release would hopefully be syndicated by other news outlets and those outlets will keep the links intact.

Matt Cutts of Google said in a Google Webmaster Help forums that links from press releases shouldn't have a positive impact on your rankings.

Matt Cutts Wrote 26 Dec:

Note: I wouldn't expect links from press release web sites to benefit your rankings, however.

Now, when you do press releases, it might get your web site in front of the eyes of bloggers, reporters and others, where what they write or link to may have an impact on your rankings. But the links within the releases themselves, Google says - they won't benefit your rankings.

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Robots.txt: Is Blocking Googlebot from crawling Javascript and CSS good now?

Matt Cutt says Don’t block Googlebot from crawling JavaScript and CSS as Blocking Javascript, CSS May Be Hurting Your Rankings. Since its told by Matt Cutt’s, please don’t have second thoughts. Just follow what the master says.

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What Is Google Penguin ?

Penguin is an improve version of Panda Update to the Google algorithm which was released on the 24th of April 2012, with the mission to demolish those websites which are over-optimized with webspam techniques. To bring traffic to the website, a few sites use tactics that don’t give benefits to users, as they are taking a shortcut which makes their site rank higher then its expectation. According to Google Engineer Matt Cutts.

Google Penguin update will not affect those blogs/websites which are using pure SEO as they heavily depends on their content and according to Google content is the king. This update will completely change the way of searching it will not only give better search results but also give a boost to high quality blogs/websites by ranking them high in SERP (Search Engine Results). It’s easy to discover, just search some of your popular keywords in Google and check whether your site is getting the same rank that it use to get previously if it is getting the same ranking then we you have survive the first wave. Now quickly look at your website statistics and check how much visitors is referred by Google. If you saw a major traffic drop down then compare your old stats with your current stats if so, then you are unlikely hit by a Penguin Update. But if you saw a rise in your traffic then Penguins is being cute to you so don’t worry. Saw no change? Then you are safe it has no impact on your website.

Comment Spamming – It’s time to say good bye to it:

It’s been an old trend to build backlinks by commenting on high page rank websites but as the technology is getting advance we need to elaborate our self. It is the time that we stop comment spamming this not only irritates a blog owner but now it can also affect your site ranking. Most users only post a comment for the sake of getting a BackLink they use automation commenting which are over stuffed with keywords and links which makes it simple for Google to identify this, and penalize these sites which are using such spam techniques.

Overflowed Same Keywords – Killing SEO:

Keywords are the most essential part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) it allows users to get the relevant content with the help of search engines. But most of the users are using it as a source of getting traffic by using blackhat techniques. They use the same keywords in every line of there article which makes Google to suspect why they are repeating same keywords again and again hence they penalty them.

Duplicate Content - Another Wrong Habit:

I can’t understand why people copy others hard work, we have witnessed it million times. Copying content is considered as a crime, if we copy others posts then we will be considered as a content thief. I don’t know why people are continuing the same trend of copying, its time that we come out from the shell and instead of copying we should concentrate on building our own unique content. After the Google Penguin update, it is almost impossible to attain high rank in SERP by copying contents. So its better to concentrate on building our own unique content If we still continue to repeat copyright violation then our blog may face detention in form of getting banned from SERP (Search Engine Results)

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Google Penguin, Over-optimization, Googled Panda Safe

If you are looking for an SEO package that complies with the current (2012) search engine algorithms, you have finally found one. Following is not flashy sales page text, instead, it is valuable information you have to know about this SEO package. 

Our all new offering is based on extensive research on Google's algorithm changes and the safe SEO practices to avoid over optimization. According to Matt Cutts video QnA session, organic and natural SEO still has value and he has hinted how Google’s decides the reputation of a website to rank in the search engines. He says (see the video to the left) a website should have some interesting information or something interesting to talk about which is then shared widely in the social media. If a website has such activity with social media signals, Matt has confirmed that these are considered as ranking factors as well as points to gain page rank.

A solution to stay away from over optimization penalty!

Another most important factor to consider when SEOing your website is "Over Optimization". If you have read the SEO news around, you would know the importance of taking over optimization factors into consideration. While all the SEO experts are clueless on what qualifies as over optimization, our research team at SIM labs found those factors:

• Promotion is spread over a period of one month with slow, organic and natural SEO
• Safe use of natural and varying anchor texts so that over optimization of targeted keyword is eliminated
• Usage of a mix of inner page urls within your website to ensure that the promotion looks natural to both search engines and users. SEO benefit would be applied to the entire website along with achieving rankings to the main targeted keywords and pages
• As usual, usage of the most updated list of top websites for promotion. This makes sure that your website gets only quality links, which is a safe SEO investment.

Googled SEO is Panda Safe and Penguin Safe

Google panda update has been around us for quite a long period of time. We had mastered the safe SEO strategies to fulfill the panda update.Now with the recent webspam (penguin) algorithm update, we have extended our Panda SEO research and implemented more organic strategies to make sure that Google loves your website. Being Panda and Google Penguin safe:

• Uses 100% manual process from formatting, submission to report creation. We strictly adhere to the "ZeroBOT" policy to make sure that the strategy is Penguin proof
• Handpicked site lists. Each site we use resides on different IPs from different locations. Your website is safe as there are no sites belonging to a huge network in our list
• Unique content used as applicable to deal with the latest Google panda update
• There are many other factors from Google Penguin update and the latest panda algorithm, which are taken into consideration

The Strategy

1: Creating the buzz about your website

As mentioned, the initial approach is to create something interesting about your website. The natural and organic way of achieving this – Write and publish well researched content related to the target keywords. For that, you cannot think of any other services other than "Advanced article marketing" and "Press Release promotion".

Advanced article marketing

• Write a well-researched, unique article of 450 – 500 words based on the main target keywords.
• The article would be then prepared for publication at 24 best article directories. Now here is the real optimization part in this SEO package. All 24 articles would carry unique resources boxes with different anchor tags. We would be making use of 10-12 keywords to link back to the related urls of your website. This makes sure that over optimization focusing on a particular keyword is not done.
• Publishing the articles will take place gradually over a month. Articles would be published in 6 spots every week for 4 weeks. This gets you 24 published articles in total.

Deliverables: 24 Published articles with varied resource box in a month with 2 links from each article

Duration: 4 Weeks

Press Release Promotion

• Write a newsworthy press release about your company which would create an instant buzz online. The press release would be written as an official release so that there is no harm in sending it to all online news channels in a single shot
• The press release would be distributed to top 90 Press release sites for maximum visibility
• Guaranteed syndication by Google News ensures that a huge buzz would be created about your website.

Deliverables:

• Login Details of each press release directory
• Screenshots of press release distributed to 90 sites

Duration: 5 working days

2: Social Media Marketing to spread the word

Now that a buzz is created about your website, it's time to spread information in the social media and perform social media marketing. Though there are countless numbers of social media marketing strategies available today, we have handpicked the services that Google values the most. Watch another clip from the same QnA video session of Matt where he confirms that the social media signals from networks such as facebook and twitter, social bookmarking sites such as stumbleupon and reditt, blogging sites such as blogspot and considered in the search engine rankings. Now we have the interesting information about your website in the form of articles and PRs, so Google bots would identify any social media marketing done right now as a natural one.

All the following promotions would start after 7 days of initial promotion so that the initial approach is indexed by Google.

20 shared social document sharing of article

The article that we had already written would be shared in top 20 social document sharing sites. For the promotion to look natural, we would use one of our general, old authority profiles to share the documents. The shared documents would carry links back to your website as well.

Deliverables: Published links of all 20 shared articles

Duration: 5 working days

10 news bookmarking of Press Release with different title and description

Now we already have the Press release about your company live online. It’s time to get the press release shared in the social media. This is where social news bookmarking comes into play. The live press release would be bookmarked in top 10 news bookmarking sites such as Slashdot and newsvine. To get rid of duplicate bookmarks, we make use of unique titles and descriptions as well.

Deliverables: Direct links to each published news bookmark

Duration: 10 working days

40 shared social bookmarking (10/ week) with different users and different titles and descriptions

You have heard Matt himself say that signals to your website from social bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon and dig are valuable for rankings. However, at most caution has to be taken when it comes to social bookmarking, when the over optimization penalty is lurking around. So we have formulated a unique social bookmarking strategy:

• Write 40 different, unique titles and descriptions
• Bookmark your website on a slow and natural pace of 10 bookmarks per week for 4 months
• Bookmarks would be done using highly reputable unique user account that we have along with posting different titles and descriptions.
• This makes the bookmarks look like being done by individual users.

Deliverables: Direct links to each bookmark (40 in 4 weeks) in the final report

Duration: 4 Weeks

Continuous participation in twitter, facebook and linkedin (Google Plus can be chosen instead of linkedin)

• 20 Wall updates to your facebook fanpage in 20 days
• 20 Tweets to your twitter profile in 20 days
• 20 updates to your Google Plus company page in 20 days

We would write interesting updates based on extensive research. It would be made sure that the social media posts that we write would be shared like a wildfire within these networks.

Deliverables: 24 Published articles with varied resource box in a month with 2 links from each article Duration: 4 Weeks

Bronze Social Media Blogging Wheels

Now it’s time for publishing unique content in social media blogs with optimized anchor texts. With the social media wheel, you would get:

• Completed profiles in 12 social media blogging sites
• Keyword research to find 12 unique keywords related to your website
• 12 Unique, well researched social media content (250-300 words) written based on the keywords
• The unique content published in 12 blogs with a Google safe link pattern.

Deliverables:

• Profile login information of all 12 social media blogging sites
• 12 Published content links

Entire project duration: 30 working days

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Google Over Optimization Penalty

Over Optimization has been the recent craze of those who were unfortunate enough to be hit by this Google algorithm change. It’s not an easy thing to deal with over optimization. So how do you get back on track once you’re hit by Google?

Black hat has gone a bit further

Over Optimization has just been added to the list of ‘don’t do’s’ by Google. I thought only black hat techniques were placed in this category but obviously now that is no longer the case. Even natural, white hat SEO now has a fine line that it cannot cross. That line is named just enough optimization.

Seriously, you can no longer be aggressive in your SEO to be good. Things are going to slow down from here on for Google to pass over your site and let your SEO grow.

The Factors Behind Over Optimization

Over Optimization is optimizing your website far beyond how it would be naturally done so in an off-page perspective. It is a content-quality check to enforce the Panda update.

The defining, common factor is an ‘if statement’. If your website does not have quality content AND:

1. You have a lot of exact-match Anchor Text coming into your website – signaling unnatural link building
2. You are practicing Obvious Link Exchange – link exchange pages already signal spam to Google. Setting up a link exchange page is a no-no. Right now, in-content link exchanges are the best way to go.
3. Your website has a Fast Link Acquisition Rate – again, signaling unnatural link building
4. Your Social Signals vs Links Ratio is far from each other – if there are a lot of links coming in, there should be people coming in from those links. If those links are quality, the people coming in from there should most likely engage in a social activity in your website. If your social signals are not consistent with your links, there must be something wrong.

“It’s widely believed that keyword stuffing and link exchanges are already spam signals in Google’s algorithm, so either Google intends to ratchet up the amount of penalty or dampening that those spam signals merit algorithmically or they have new over-optimization signals in mind as well,” - Matt Cutts

Perhaps Over Optimization can be simplified to optimizing your website for the search engines rather than for people.

The bottom line is, a site can only be considered over optimized if it is filled with SEO techniques – whether good or great, and the content does not live up to the site’s SEO level.

“All those people who have sort of been doing, for lack of a better word, “over optimization” or “overly” doing their SEO, compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we want to sort of make that playing field a little bit more level.” – Matt Cutts

One thing’s for sure

If you have great, quality content that focuses on people and not search engines, you have nothing to worry about.

Here are 23 guidelines from Amit Singhal to ask yourself in verifying content that the Google Panda Update will consider ‘quality’

1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?
2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
6. Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
7. Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
8. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
9. How much quality control is done on content?
10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?
11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
12. Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
13. Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
14. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
15. Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
16. Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
17. Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
18. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
19. Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
20. Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
21. Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
22. Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
23. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

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Google's Algorithm Update to Penalize Over Optimized Sites

Few week during a SXSW panel, Matt Cutts, head of Google's search spam team, announced that Google has been working on a new tweak to its algorithm that will punish sites that are too optimized for SEO -- what he called "over-optimized" or "overly SEO'd," according to the recording of the announcement posted on Search Engine Land. Here's what you need to know about the new Google algorithm update, which has not been released yet but will go live in the next few weeks, according to Cutts' announcement.

What Cutts Revealed About the New Algorithm Update?

Cutts hadn't planned on mentioning the algorithm update, but was given the perfect opportunity when an attendee asked the following question:

"With so many SEO companies showing up claiming to do SEO, a lot of markets are getting saturated with optimized content...What are you doing to prevent, for example, if you're looking for something, and the first page is just optimized content, and it's not what you're actually looking for? Are you pretty much out of luck if you're not optimizing your site but it has relevant content? If I'm a mom or pop and I'm trying to optimize a site by myself, I'm going to get beat by people paying thousands of dollars."

This algorithm update is working to level the playing field for sites without as many resources to dedicate to SEO. Matt explained the changes as "trying to make the algorithm more adaptive," or being more understanding of sites that have good content even if it isn't search engine optimizedlike many marketers have learned to do. The sites that will be penalized are those that "throw too many keywords on the page, exchange way too many links, whatever they're doing to go beyond what a normal person would expect."

What Google's Algorithm Update Means Practically for Marketers?

If your content is driven by topics, you shouldn't expect to be penalized when the new algorithm update rolls out, even if you do take the time to search engine optimize that content with keywords and relevant links. If your writing is driven by keywords, however, we predict it's more likely you'll suffer some search ranking slips.

What's the difference between a keyword-driven content strategy and a topic-driven content strategy? A content strategy driven by what readers want, not what search engines want, is the direction that Google has been actively working toward rewarding even since last year's Panda updatesrolled out. So if you're selecting topics based on what your audience would find helpful, you're doing content strategy right. If you're choosing what to write about based on the keywords you want to be found for, you don't have the reader top of mind; and Google is doing everything they can in its algorithm not to reward such sites in the SERPs.

Said Cutts on the panel, "Make a compelling site. Make a site that's useful. Make a site that's interesting. Make a site that's relevant to people's interests...We're always trying to best approximate if a user lands on a page if they are going to be annoyed...All of the changes we make are designed to approximate, if a user lands on your page, just how happy they are going to be with what they're going to get."

Marketers, business owners, and SEOs could also take a cue from Bing's Duane Forrester, who was also on the panel and addressed the attendee's question after Matt Cutts' initial response. He highlighted the importance of social sharing as a signal others actually like your content -- one of the key indicators of relevancy for search engines. "Does the rest of the world think you have a great product?" Forrester asked. "If they do, they will amplify this. If you're not engaged socially, you're missing the boat because the conversation is happening socially about you and about your content. Those are really important signals for us. Whether you're involved or not is your choice, but those signals still exist whether you're in the conversation or not."

Thankfully, Danny Sullivan asked the burning question we all had (or still have) on our minds -- whether Google is going to release an algorithm update that's designed to hurt the kinds of SEO activities that have been recommended to marketers to help their search rankings. In short, no; this algorithm update won't do that. Cutts clarified by saying, "SEO can often be very helpful. It can make a site more crawlable; it can make a site more accessible; it can think about the words users are going to type whenever they come to a search engine to make sure those words are on a page. The same things you do to optimize your return on investment and make sure things spread virally or socially are often the same things that work from a search engine perspective...but there are some people who take it too far. If you're white hat or doing very little SEO, you're not going to be affected by this change."

So marketers, it sounds like the same rules still apply. Create great content with readers in mind first, search engines in mind second. Then make sure your site is easily crawlable so bots can actually read and index that content. As more information is released, we'll keep you updated on whether this algorithm update will affect the way you approach your content or search engine optimization strategy.

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