Guest Blog Post - Sandeep Malhi
Article Submission vs. Google Panda
Article submission has been a significant approach for link popularity building. Be it business websites or personal websites, all are using this approach to improve their link popularity. Article submission allows a lot of backlinks and more backlinks indicate higher ranking on search engines. Submitting articles to article submission sites can bestow those valuable backlinks to us. Well, that’s how it has been until only couple of months ago.
With Google’s latest Panda update, which is also called Farmer update, SEO marketing community is in quandary, questioning about the effectiveness of this article submission technique. SEO companies that offer link building services or more specifically article submission services have more reasons to worry.
Effect of Google Panda on content farming:
Sites that got the worst blow from Google Panda effect are mostly content farming websites. These sites include ezinearticles.com, Hubpages.com, suite101.com, buzzle.com and many more. Most of them lost their rankings and almost 70 percent of their traffic. But the question that arises is what is content farming and why has Google dropped the rankings of these sites?
What is content farming?
Content Farm is a website that uses content published on other websites or publishes low quality content that is not beneficial to users. Content farming is an unethical practice and annoys search engines. Some websites publish content on their websites in bulk in order to push up their search engine rankings without bothering about the quality of the content.
With the increase in this spamming technique, Google started a war against content farms with its latest search engine algorithm update called “Farmer” or “Panda” Update and Google Panda affected the SEO best practices forever. This is intended to improve the quality of search results by removing low quality websites present on search engines.
Why companies bother about content farming:
Consider a situation where one company writes unique and informative content for it’s website in the form of a video, an article or a presentation or any relevant information about its products or services. Another website offering the same services, takes content from this website, rephrases it and publishes it on its website. This may not be a favorable situation for the website that posted the content originally as it’s content is being stolen.
In order to mitigate this, Google came up with its ‘Panda update’, in which “quality raters” are employed by Google to keep a check on the content. These professionals’ sole purpose is to filter content and separate it into two groups based on the parameters like originality, authenticity, credibility, and exceptionality.
After being ranked by quality raters, the content is ranked by software. So, in the first place Google creates a strong and effective human filter so that webmasters cannot play with search engine algorithms. This encourages them to provide relevant, informative, and high quality content to the users.
What precautions webmasters should take to avoid Panda effect?
• Start creating content for human visitors and not only for search engines.
• Publish content that is appealing to users and the one that they would like sharing over the Internet via social media channels.
• Make SEO an ongoing and continuous process rather than making it a short term one day process.
• Create your website presence on various social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google+
How many articles to write on your own Blog or Website?
Most of the time it takes 2-3 articles to make a sale. It depends upon which keyword we are targeting, is it a low competition buyer keyword or just any other. Also when you research for keywords, make sure it is the one that receives good amount of searches per day. Moreover, you can submit 50 articles per day but you have to submit each article with fresh content. So, rather than focusing on the quantity, more emphasis should be given to the quality of the content so that it can benefit both the visitors and you in the long run.
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
September 6th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Hi Beth,
I just saw a video about article marketing scam and it discussed about the duplicate contents and spun articles that google is now punishing. I actually understand Google and I support their updates. I have done the article marketing strategy before and ever since the Panda update, I no longer submit articles to a number of directories. But do you think it would still work to submit one article to one directory only? So that the article will be unique on that directory alone…
Miles @ Wedding Marquee Hire´s last [type] ..Marquees for Hire
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September 7th, 2011 at 5:13 am
I fount this interesting and pertinent to what is happining with my blog right now. I told myself that I was going to be doing 1 post per day. I didn’t have a benchmark for quality- only quantity. I backed off of my promise I made to myself because I had to keep the bar high for PEOPLE coming to my site, not just search engine crawlers.
Patrick McIntosh´s last [type] ..Brandi Chastain’s New Rules for Pro Soccer Series 4
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September 8th, 2011 at 4:21 am
You really stressed out a good point here. Now with the latest update on Google, where quality content is really required. I think that content farming will be an obsolete choice.
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September 8th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Hey Sandeep/Beth,
This is a great article which serves as a reminder that Google is always changing, consistently improving it’s programing delivering a more relevant, high quality search for its end user.
In the end, updates such as Google Panda of course are a good thing but it does mean that we need to stay on top of what the search engines are doing and we may need to adjust our own marketing accordingly.
As long as you write quality content giving solid value to your readers your website and its valuable and helpful information should survive anything the Google throws at us!
Thanks for sharing,
Kevin
Kevin [email protected]´s last [type] ..A tribute To Our Mentors
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September 8th, 2011 at 6:41 pm
I never heard of panda until now. This was very inspiring to me because I’m from the old school of going to a blog, reading it and sharing comments and syndication. If the blog doesn’t have a good content, I skip it. Since I’ve been blogging, I have had very high ratings because of the comments and syndications of real life people.
Thanks for sharing this information. I love learning new things!
Blessings,
Donna
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September 8th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Hi Beth
I realy agree with what you say and it just make a lot of sens to me.
soon i am going to do that Article think also and i will Knock at your
door for help. When my new blog is 100% up and running.
Best Regards
Theuns
Theuns´s last [type] ..Gratitude Expose - Success Begins and Ends with Gratitude
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September 16th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
I haven’t change anything in my SEO strategy after Panda updates, nor that I have lost any rankings. I am quite happy as actually Google cleaned top results from article directories. It is much easier to achieve rankings for long tail keywords.
Kal@SEO Guide´s last [type] ..Jay created new blog entry Using Coupons to Increase Back Links in Internet Marketing & SEO
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September 28th, 2011 at 7:01 am
Thanks everyone for your appreciation. I would be sharing more quality content here in near future.
Yes, Panda update has changed the whole SEO topography and more importance is given to the informative content that readers like reading and sharing over social media networks.
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October 13th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
You can never go wrong by building quality content for users to read and appreciate vice just writing to rank in the search engines. Panda affected many sites that were simply link farming. If you stay true to Google’s policies, then there is no reason why your site won’t be successful. Great article!
Rufus Kagan@Backlink Builder´s last [type] ..Search Engine Optimization and Backlinks–Foundations To Success
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February 16th, 2012 at 5:55 am
This works better for article sites also since they will be having distinctive content in their directories, Google will grant them better authority meaning better link juice for your site at the end.
Earl Dickerson´s last [type] ..Top Tips for Monitoring and Controlling Your Project
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February 16th, 2012 at 5:57 am
This works better for article sites also since they will be having distinctive content in their directories, Google will grant them better authority meaning better link juice for your site at the end..
Earl Dickerson´s last [type] ..Top Tips for Monitoring and Controlling Your Project
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February 27th, 2012 at 6:07 am
Article spinning or rehashing of the original articles is some thing which has to be checked at some stage and its so nice that google took such strict steps to prevent it. This will save the efforts of hardworking original content writer.
Hats off to google panda!
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March 15th, 2012 at 3:41 am
Great Read…Love your post. I want to keep updated with what you are writing about. Thanks for an interesting read.
Michael´s last [type] ..Leadership…You Have To Make The First Step
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October 9th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Sounds like good advice. I still occasionally submit articles to sites like SelfGrowth and eZine but not as much as I used to - primarily because I’ve been spending so much time writing books. It’s helpful to have this refresher and I do believe there is still some benefit to article marketing - if for no other reason than to get our names out there and build credibility. Thanks!
marquita herald´s last [type] ..The Beauty of Being a Beginner
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October 9th, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Hi Beth
This is a highly informative article. I wasn’t aware of this. It seems to be similar to plagarism which is rife in academic circles and grossly unfair to the originator of the content.
Universities employ software to ensure submissions haven’t been plagarised and this sounds similar.
Clearly the best strategy is to be producer of original qulaity content which is written with the reader in mind.
Thanks for posting this.
Mark
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October 12th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Hello Sandeep, thanks for taking the time to share your expertise over her on Beth’s blog. I think you’ve given a balanced and concise account of this… factual thanks
Sadie-Michaela Harris´s last [type] ..SMBs and Social Media in 2012
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October 15th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
How useful. It explains a lot of what is happening from my own inbound traffic from ezinearticles being down.
Darn Google. While I understand the premise, website like ezinearticles are, in my opinion, more like a clearing house for content, not a content farm.
Thanks for a useful post.
Patricia Weber´s last [type] ..How Usain Bolt Can Teach Us To Manage Our Personal Finances Better
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October 16th, 2012 at 11:35 am
Every overuse of a system has it’s consequents. So the best thing is to be always careful where and how often you publish your content. Backlinking is important but you have to be careful how you do it.
Bruno Buergi´s last [type] ..Internet Marketing Business Made Easy With These Simple Tips
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October 16th, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Excellent article, thank you very much for that.
As much as many people hate the Google Animal updates, I for one am please to see that Google are weeding out the rubbish and forcing people to produce good content.
Hats off to all our mentors, who have stressed this point very strongly, to provide value.
George Park´s last [type] ..Mindset - Another Problem For The New Network or Internet Marketer.
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