Perhaps, I was angry at Google. But this is not the first time that Google has taken an ax to my online business. … So I have a beef with Google, but saying that I also use their products and services a lot of the day. Hmmm.
But my concerns are well echoed by Burt. Each and every site is different. Each and every site has different strengths and weaknesses. This makes your position on the Web and in Google unique.
With so many factors that Google now has up its sleave, there is little the ordinary webmaster can do to improve their ranking in Google by faking it. And as Google has shown, what works one year, fails dismally the next. So taking any advice on improving your site is dangerous. it’s like taking just any kind of medicine: you may get the results you want, or worse.
But it’s difficult to ascertain that the drug you took actually MADE you feel better or not. So it is with Google. With over 200 factors (and more in development), this makes diagnosing a site difficult.
So some people talked about removing thin pages… what about your comments in C2? Those, for example, are contributed by your readers… that’s hardly good for readers to erase hundreds of comments just in the hope you will get a better ranking in Google.
The only hope I see for flagging sites like mine, is to get real audiences clicking through to it and staying. I don’t intend to rewrite 100 pages of content (approx. 100,000 words) on the off chance it may suit Google today. Who knows if it will suit them tomorrow…?
Do the site audit, make sure your site is valuable to your readers, … find the mistakes and fix them, but don’t spend hours agonizing over the commas on each page or tweaking your content to make it ‘suitable’ to Google.
I had thought I would, for example, spend hours of my time removing my affiliate links, but it’s too difficult to put them in tracker, and at the end of the day. If I remove the links, then my site won’t earn its keep.
In short, though, Google is going to do what Google does. You cannot control them, and if you rely on them for your audience, then there is the risk that one day you may find that they have delisted your entire site.
So this is what I mean, spend your time trying to satisfy Google’s whims or spend your time trying to satisfy your customer’s needs… spend your time trying to rank in Google or spend your time trying to find a real audience. One thing is sure: if you have your audience, Google WILL recognize that. It has no choice.
And that’s why I said what I said. "Make your site as good as it can be and forget about Panda. And to a lesser extent, Google, too." Google cannot build your site, only you can.