Since its announcement, the new Panda update has been a source of motivation for me. Not that I imagine the world order being called into question, but everything that has to do with the valorization of the text gives me the energy.
Dedicated to the quality of the content, I count on this modification of the algorithm to:
- Strengthen my clients’ positions;
- To give a little more credibility to my speech on the quality of the content;
- Use it to argue even more strongly against requests to create satellite sites that I refuse in the name of ethics.
The insolent success of certain sites as empty of meaning as of content always enrages me, for two reasons:
- They are the counter-examples on which customers rely to consider the development of more or less Black Hat strategies;
- They bring nothing to the web and occupy precious places in the SERPs annoying the Internet user in his browsing.
Having always campaigned for a user-friendly and free news web, the very idea of deceiving the visitor by offering him only adsense in response to his searches really annoys me.
On June 27, Google dances:
Positioning movements had been noticed in mid-June This shudder of the results was reported during the following week by some French sites, but the modifications were not brutal and a minor correction of the algorithm was concluded, as often happens. In particular, we talked about the impact of the progress of Google’s new +1 button but not the deployment of the long-awaited bamboo rod-eating teddy bear.
However, abnormal activity was noticed by the most “technological”, Google crawled more intensely than usual the big websites, a sign that did not agree with the “+1 button” presumption.
Pushing the investigation further during the following days, I noticed the decline of some sites identified as “link farms” (including the terrible Sito Vote cited in a previous article ).
Ah! Without being “spectacular to trigger tears”, it seemed that the elements agreed. Many thought (including me) that the pandouillon was indeed reevaluating everything, that it would take him a while and that patience was required!
Indeed, during the whole week of the movements, revaluations were observed pushing down some demeritorious people. We thought that the filter had been applied in modules, in pieces, during the summer so as not to upset the results all at once (?). The experience of the deployment in the USA in April, which justified several updates to the Panda update, may have motivated this soft deployment tactic…
It was also possible that Google killed two birds with one stone. Re-evaluating according to Panda and applying the new Page Rank at the same time made sense… What is certain is that it has heated up in the servers.
August 12 Panda is here…
Searchmetric analysis
Based on the most reliable statistics, the searchmetric blog mentions the most severe corrections noticed.
The study is based on analyses of the visibility index of the sites. It corresponds to the positioning of sites on the main keywords of their market, correlated according to the share of traffic generated by these keywords.
Applied on August 12, the monitoring labs confirm an exceptional crawling activity and analyze the consequences. Statistical changes sometimes reach -88% from one week to the next
Of course you won’t find your blog in this list since it only targets the biggest traffic in the country, but you will notice that the big content aggregators are strongly affected (Wikio – 74.7%), the price comparators are very numerous in the list, they arrogate to themselves for the worst “more than – 80%”. There are coupon sites (up to -86%), directories (hotfrog.fr-67%), in short the targets declared since February 2011 and which have not bothered to correct the course such as the essential of web referencing WRI which wins on the site but takes a -54% on the forum part (probably too many pages that boil down to a question asked, Left unanswered, too many Adsense, the advertising of their courses in each page of the site, this must generate penalizing bounce rates…)
More surprisingly, news sites such as midilibre.com, lexpress.com or lefigaro.fr… (Probably penalized – rightly or wrongly – by the duplicate content of their articles which, poorly protected (?), are found everywhere reprinted.
The aim here is not to point the finger at the “losers” but to argue the movement on the move.
Interesting announcement effects
Matt Cutts had warned that the effects in terms of positioning would be less spectacular on the French-speaking web than the American SERP, yet the noise and fear generated by the announcement of this update led to a mass of articles and above all to an awareness of the need to produce quality content. This noise had the effect of giving:
- A little aura to natural referencing and
- credibility to the “SEO writers” often questioned.
Finally, if it was logical that the web had taken up the subject and made a ton of it, it was much less obvious for the print press.
The New York Times (itself a victim of the beast!), the Nouvel Observateur in France (also a victim) had relayed the information pointing to it as a major event popularizing our expertise a little and making the discipline a real profession… which is not easy for everyone.
What impact in Quebec?
You will have noticed that I have nothing on the Quebec web…
I propose to bring here the observations you have made in terms of ranking in the SERPs or in loss and gain of traffic. By leaving your links, you will allow a look at the blocking factors that would or would not justify your variations in positioning. Although it aims for quality in all directions, the Panda update is far from perfect – the deployment in English has shown it – the case is not settled.
Have you noticed any movements on some Quebec sites? We are interested in your contribution in this regard
Strong reactions!
If some sites are good players and recognize their drop in traffic (WRI) (they have the means to make up for this…) It seems that for others it is terribly vexing to find themselves in the statistical list published by searchmetric, an independent organization.
I can’t resist the urge to publish this email which was sent to me by an Executive Director Limited of one of these sites.
Can I translate as Executed and Limited Director?… I prefer to laugh about it.
This gentleman would be better off investing a portion of his price comparison commissions, in content and SEO. His site is exactly the target of the Panda. 
Référencement-PME prends en charge les stratégies marketing des entreprises et PME dans la région de Montréal, pour sa plus grande fierté, depuis plus de 15 ans
