1

I've been hit by panda 4 (40% decrease). I didn't see any change during panda 1-3. From what I've read it and when compared to my site, the change is probably due to the fact that I have over 30M pages indexed on Google, and they've starting seeing that as some sort of bad indication. Although I feel all of the pages have a unique value that Google should crawl, it seems I should make some tough calls and deduce the indexed pages according to some prioritization I will conduct. The question is what should be my target, or what factors should help me figure out a relevant target.

How many pages should I try to reduce to?
- 25M
- 15M
- 1M
- 2000

Is it enough to add noindex to low priority pages or should I also remove all internal linking to them?

UPDATE: just to clarify, all of my pages are such that I believe will provide value to my users. But as I understood, in times like these I should still consider de-indexing some of them, because just because a user might get value, doesn't mean Google will see this as a quality page, which is a very subjective definition actually.

Improve this question
12
  • Page number is irrelevant, Quality is.
    – Simon Hayter
    Commented May 30, 2014 at 16:03
  • 1
    Where are you getting your Panda 4 information? How do you know you are being penalized? I cannot think that a large site is the problem, but perhaps content quality. After all, there are tons of huge sites such as Wikipedia that are highly prized by Google with many millions of pages.
    – closetnoc
    Commented May 30, 2014 at 16:04
  • @bybe would you say adding low quality pages to quality pages is irrelevant?
    – Noam
    Commented Jun 1, 2014 at 11:57
  • @closetnoc Just because an internet giant can get away with something doesn't mean I can.
    – Noam
    Commented Jun 1, 2014 at 12:01
  • @bybe Do you not agree there are times where a page gives value to your users but you should remove it from Googles index because he might see it as low quality?
    – Noam
    Commented Jun 1, 2014 at 12:03

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

If you saw an immediate traffic drop then you were affected by Panda, however you may be looking at it the wrong way. Starting with Panda 1 a lot of sites were heavily penalized which opened the door for new sites to take their place in the SERPs. Now that a refresh has happened, many of the old sites that were once heavily penalized have the opportunity to move back up by fixing their own issues.

Step 1: Determine if your site was actually penalized, or if others just moved back into their natural positions displacing you in the SERPs.

You do this by seeing if most all pages have lost ranking, or only a few high traffic pages have moved down. If you have lost Google organic across the entire site, then you have been hit by Panda. If only a few high traffic pages lost out, then other sites have likely moved up and you moved down. It's important to figure this out before hacheting important pages from your site.

As others have said, it's not about quantity it about quality.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.