• Posted by Melanie
• 09 May 2011
• Ecommerce SEO

Are you working hard to eliminate the duplication and low quality content in your shop? Maybe you can even see a light at the end of the tunnel?

NOT

Googler Amit Singhal wrote a nice post on Google Webmaster Central regarding the Panda update, things you can do to improve your site and ...

Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year.

This is where we get the "Holy Algorithms Batman" title for this post!

Okay, well having said that... Keep your shirt on, he also really did have some logical and easily to follow thoughts for surmising the quality issues on your website. I am going to post them verbatim for you lazy clickers to read.

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• 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?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• 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?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

I think you should read these questions and answer them honestly about your shop. Then send them off to 3 friends to do the same (because I know you are not exactly objective). Then use your savvy niche expertise in your field to generate a logical and sustained plan of attack from the answers.

I would choose to agree and disagree with the author's suggestion to :

...rather than focusing on one particular algorithmic tweak, we encourage you to ask yourself the same sorts of questions we ask when looking at the big picture.

I agree that you must be moving towards an overall quality and a big picture, but I disagree that focusing and studying individual algorithm tweaks is somehow "ill advised". Instead I suggest that lack of current knowledge and information regarding the search results leads to disastrous and  uninformed decisions. My own process is to study the changes, read all I can on them and then try to determine what the overall purpose and end result Google may be seeking. That way I can hopefully cover the initial change quickly and continue to grow in the correct direction overall.

• Posted by Melanie
• 24 October 2010
• Ecommerce SEO

Many website owners of big, small, new and old websites are report slow to no indexing from Google, resulting in drastic drops in Google organic traffic. Google has responded in Google webmaster central that this is no update or algorithm change, but rather a technical issue on Google's part. Thus answering the posted issues for a great deal of puzzled and concerned webmaster posts.

On 10/22/2010 Google Webmaster Trends Analyst JohnMu responded with the following statement:

Hi everyone

I just wanted to provide a short update. This issue should be resolved soon, but it will take a several days for everything to catch up and for these changes to be visible. I'll provide another update after the weekend.

In the meantime, there's no need to make any changes on your side. Content from your sites will continue to be indexed during this time (though perhaps at the moment not as quickly as before in some cases).

Thank you for your patience and for all the feedback!

Cheers,

John

While these issues can be hard to accept, one must simply accept that any network, software and project the size of Google is very likely to have a glitch or 2 upon occasion. The best course of action for any webmaster affected by the glitch or not is to become a "Exceptionally Active". This means in a nutshell exactly what we tell clients and have always..... Keep your content regular, fresh and unique.

The goal to being "Exceptionally Active" is to create new content (especially new pages) regularly enough to "Train Googlebot" to visit, crawl and index your website more frequently. While this is no bulletproof plan, we see many very active sites that are less affected, or not at all affected by this glitch. It is just a best practice elixir or cure most anything for your website.

JohnMu has promised an update after the weekend and advises that you not make any significant changes to your website in the next few days until this is resolved. He also cautions that once resolved it may take some time to "catch up" the indexing for the affected websites.