If you have your own blog, website, or are involved in SEO, you have probably at least heard about the Google updates name Panda and Penguin. If you are one of the unfortunate, you have been personally effected by one or both of these updates. If the latter sounds like you, I feel your pain as I have also been effected by the recent updates.
Many people have been speculating as to what the updates involve and what they are being trigger by. The most common reasoning says it is all about backlinks…. Either links from bad neighborhoods or having an unrealistic (too optimized) diversification of anchor links pointing to your site. Like most people, I started testing to determine the inner workings of these updates. I became quickly frustrated however, because my results were showing that it was not only backlinks that effect ranking after the panda and penguin updates. I could quite figure it out…. Until I watched this video. Then it all made much more sense. It is a little over 20 minutes but I highly recommend you watch!
That’s right! It is about on-page optimization! That actually makes complete sense. Google has always said that your sites should be built with your readers in mind. If you are creating content that is unique and your visitors like, then Google will reward you. This could also explain why so many people are going with the backlink hypothesis. The on-page factors of the sites where you are getting backlinks from have been devalued because of there on-page factors, either by panda or penguin.
In any case, don’t take this as the gospel on the Google updates. This is just a piece of the puzzle and happens to go along with my testing. I highly recommend that you do your own testing if you haven’t already!
To Taming the Google Zoo,
Shawn Brown
Corresponding video: internet marketing