Panda then Vince – Google u Crazy!
By: John Elder posted in Adsense
Hello good people!
It’s another great jogging day here in Chicago, probably the last for a while (except maybe a day or two this weekend if we’re lucky). The storms are rolling in!
Today I was going to discuss my October Adsense Earnings in detail and give you a heads up on what I’ll be focusing on in the coming month. But I’m going to leave that till tomorrow. You can see the data yourself without any of my analysis at the link above.
Instead I want to talk about something that’s been making the rounds in SEO circles for the last couple of days. Google’s “Vince” update.
Vince, don’t you mean Panda?
Nope…this one’s called Vince. It’s been released for a while but hasn’t got a lot of publicity because everyone’s been focused on Panda.
What is Vince? Basically it’s an algorithm update that is supposed to give a little boost to Brand-specific websites. Supposedly if you are a Brand website and got hit by Panda, Vince will sort you out and bring you back on top.
What’s a brand website? Well you know, Nike…Dell…Macy’s….the New York Times…the big brand name websites.
What does it mean for you and me?
Good question…as far as I can tell…not a damn thing. My Adsense websites definitely aren’t “brand” websites…though they are about many branded products.
On the other hand…some people are suggesting that Vince isn’t about brand sites…but rather, it’s about thick Authority sites. Whereas Panda is all about knocking out thin affiliate sites like mine.
I’m not really sure about that. I’ve seen plenty of authority sites get creamed by Panda and not come back through Vince.
No one seems to even really be sure which version of Vince we’re seeing right now. Version 1? Version 2? Maybe Version 3? Your guess is as good as mine. One thing is for sure though, Google will continue to do whatever the hell it wants whenever the hell it wants. Period.
As a side note, if you want to keep an eye out for discussions about Google Algorithm updates, Webmaster World is a great place to start.
Oh Google…
Just for once I’d love it if Google just leveled with us and told us what they like. We’d all comply, believe me! But I guess that’s the problem. If they told us straight out what they wanted, everyone would build sites exactly like that, and then Google wouldn’t be able to differentiate between them.
So I get it… I just don’t like it. So what should we all do? Well…the same thing as always. Keep our heads down, keep reading and trying to second guess Google to stay ahead of the game, and…
Keep on Building!
-John
The Marketing Fool!
