They called it Google Panda update #25, and it was meant to be possibly the last announced update which striked on March 15, 2013, after which it was planned to get rolled into routine Google algortihm updates. And Google Panda striked our site again.
Google Panda Strikes
Since the update, traffic has been on a constant decline week per week and with the current downward trend, the traffic should be wiped out soon. Google Panda 3.2 first striked our site on January 18, 2012. Since the peak of traffic then in Jan 2012, the site traffic has currently dropped by 80%.
But I enjoy blogging and will continue to bring you great content, tips and tricks. Ever since 2004 when this blog started, the amazing QOT community keeps growing and now has nearly 25000 RSS readers tracking every article. Content is also buzzed to the nearly 30,000 strong social media community on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Fighting Google Panda
Over the year Panda has been a boon in disguise as it has helped us improve our site – the content is much better, with working links, less comment spam, and more great tips. Its important to realize that Google is changing and its not always about Panda. Panda has enabled all genuinely affected sites with good intent to improve significantly and provide a better user experience. The only downside of Panda is the falling advertising revenue which is a big motivation factor for any blogger to pay the bills and earn a lifestyle you love.
We are trying to fix things that will hopefully help to restore traffic
- Make the site faster
- Lesser thin content
- Lesser toxic backlinks
- Lesser broken links
- Tighter feed scraping control
- Find more copied content
- More powerful image hotlinking blocking options
- Less WordPress comment spam (3 million spam comments blocked)
- No guest blogging posts accepted
- More interviews
- Speak to type – more longer posts.
- Less time wasting,
- More social media blocking time.
- Better server security
- More use of Bing Webmaster SEO tools
- Better site uptime monitoring
- Track Bounce rate for more pageviews
- Submit reconsideration requests
- Improve site responsive design
- Better affiliate link cleanup from all posts
- More copyright policy enforcement
- Remove job board, already moved to another domain.
- Create a brand which you love
- A better user experience.
Despite the falling traffic, we will continue to experiment with web tools and share our experiences fairly. And I am sure the traffic will return. We do not sell links or buy links, never do link exchanges or sponsored reviews. We want a great site and are happy to fix issues if any.
Keep reading and thanks for all your support and sharing the QOT journey along the way.