Those who have been working as a gambling affiliate for some years or indeed any kind of online affiliate will have witnessed many changes over recent times. Google has targeted affiliate scripts, spammers and duplicate content plus also of course devalued many types of links. Not to mention the new batch of penalties that have been introduced which have seen thousands of sites condemned to low level rankings. It is a fact that even changing internal site wide links can now trigger a penalty. It is also a fact that Google is still flawed because you can still in effect buy rankings by purchasing high quality links. Google knows this and by the looks of recent developments it seems we could be on the verge of seeing more major changes which could well indeed see the end of link building for increased rankings.
Nothing lasts forever, especially in the online affiliate world. I strongly suggest with the introduction of the Google Panda update, that during the course of the next year we are going to see major changes, perhaps of the likes we have never seen before.
Many affiliates believe that the Google Panda update, simply targets sites with low level content and sites with duplicate content. Many state that sites with pages with thin content will be condemned to the doldrums of SERPs. This of course has led to many affiliates spending a large amount of time, and indeed money fluffing out pages with an extra 500 words or so leaving them scratching their heads when their rankings did not return.
It seems clear now that Panda is here to stay with the latest version rolled out (v2.2) just a couple of weeks ago. It seems that each version claims new victims along with a just lucky few sites that return from the abyss.
I’m predicting that what we are seeing now with each release of Panda is just the start. I predict that over the next year or so, each release of Panda will claim more and more victims concluding with the Google algorithm virtually discounting all links.
Those that believe that the key to escaping any penalty from future Panda updates is to simply have pages that contain 750 or even 1000 words or more, in my opinion are misguided. From reading many affiliates forums and blogs, even site with 1000 word pages have been hit hard. It is clear that Google is now searching for quality rather than quantity!
From my own network of sites I have seen pages with “thin” content jump in SERPs without any extra links. I have also seen pages that I would class as quality content lose rankings. To me it seems obvious that Google is starting to use other metrics rather than just link quality such as bounce rate, average time on site, page views per visitor and click through rates. Also as I have been saying for years, branded sites seem to be ranking better than ever before! I have no doubt that big brand type affiliate sites will simply murder thin exact match type sites within the next year.
Also of note is that low quality links now can damage your rankings. Avoid adding site wide links to your backlink profile unless the side wide links added will only be a small percentage of your total links. For new sites with thin back link profiles avoid site wide links completely and be extremely careful with you own internal linking structure. Adding a mega menu can result in a penalty which from my own experience can take some time to expire.
For some months I have been weaning myself away from building links in favour of making my sites more “sticky”, with I must say great results in regards to SERPs. I have even taken the time to remove many links from my back links profiles again achieving better rankings. It is hard to change when set methods have worked so well for so many years. Those that don’t adapt though are at high risk to be hit by the wrath of Google in the months to come.
