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| By: anonymous - at April 6, 2013 |
How the Google Panda and Penguin Update Algorithms Affected Me
Okay I admit it, I have used duplicate content in the past to
try and make money!
 You
heard me right, I was lazy and didn't want to write anything so I was obsessed
with cranking out duplicate content sites (aka scrapper sites). Why?
Because it worked, that's why. At least up until those damn furry animals
came and pooped on me lol! First off, can you make money
using duplicate content?
This is very good question, and I think I can answer this for you because I have
experience with 6 niche sites I made comprised completely of duplicate content (scrapper sites),
alongside with a few sites using unique content only,
and a few sites with a mixture of the two (50% unique and 50% duplicate).
The short answer is yes, but how much are we talking about compared to unique
content?
Duplicate content has worked remarkably amazing up until Google recently
starting rolling out major algorithm updates (called Panda) back in 2011.
These updates literally dropped the traffic of duplicate content sites
considerably (as what happened to mine). Nowadays, duplicate content is
only about 10-20% affective as it used to be. Unique content is where the
money is at now, as it should be.
Google Has Always Been Concerned with Duplicate Content!
Today I have about a dozen web sites that have been aging for over 7 years
now. A few
years ago (before Panda/Penguin) one of my sites got completely banned from
Google even though I had developed many quality backlinks for that site. Why was
it banned? Well, 100% of the content was duplicated from articlecity.com and ezinearticles.com.
It was getting some search engine traffic (a few hundred a day for about 5
months). Google then looked at
my site personally (they sent me an email, that's how I know) and quickly saw that all the content was taken from just those two sites.
As
smart as Google is, they put a ban on it. Not a single page was then indexed by their
search engine, and I did not receive any search engine traffic from Google
anymore. But other search engines, such as Yahoo and MSN, indexed
all the pages, and I have some traffic trickling in from them. Considering that it is my site and it
still took a lot
of work to construct all the pages for it by obtaining articles from those "ezine"
sites, I honestly believe Google did the right thing. You shouldn't just
make sites for Yahoo and MSN's search engines because most of the search engine
traffic comes from Google.
And this happened in 2008, before those furry animals appeared on the web.
But this didn't stop me from keep trying duplicate content! So this didn't work, but what kind of scrapper sites did/do work?
Duplicate Content Works if Done
Right
I have a few sites solely made from duplicate content, and they have been
well indexed and highly ranked on Alexa great in the past, and have made me a
decent amount of money. The key to make duplicate
content work for you without extreme penalties is all about where you obtain the
content.
From my experience, I think Google has "flagged" specific sites so that if
people take content from these sites and put it on their site, it will have a
negative impact on your site, making you more likely to get banned from Google's
search. Which
sites do I think are "flagged" by Google? Sites like ezinearticles.com, articlecity.com,
and goarticles.com are most likely monitored to see if people are taking their content
to put on their own site. So be warned if you take any
articles from these sites and put it on yours because it will most likely have a negative impact on
your site. If the majority of your content is taken from just those sites, it is
very likely your site will be frowned upon by Google. Later on I'll share
you more of my secrets in how I made duplicate content sites work for me.
But first I want to show you how the Panda Updates affected me.
Duplicate content created major traffic fluctuations before the Panda
update. This still generated traffic and money for webmasters.
How the Recent Panda Update Affected Me
Up until the Panda update (in 2011), one thing I have noticed is that the sites I've built using duplicate
content have experienced weird traffic fluctuations. I would experience
periods of no traffic whatsoever that was followed by explosive increases in
traffic.
This is most likely due to Google's search
engine algorithms detecting the duplicate content and dealing with it in different
ways from time to time.
For the sites I used all unique content, the traffic remains
more steady and strong over time.
One of my duplicate content sites is purely a scrapper site that I started in 2010
as an experiment. It performed VERY NICELY for about a year before the
Panda came and kicked it's ass! Check out it's traffic:
This is a World of Warcraft Guides Site From 2010 - 2013:
This was my 3rd duplicate content site I ever built. On Jan
22nd 2010 it went from 20 visitors a day to 4,000 (instantly from Google search
queries) and stayed there and steadily
rose for a whole year after that. It was getting around 20,000 visitors a day for
an entire year. I was so
ecstatic of how well it was performing despite the fact that I took all the
content from forum posts. I was able to make enough money to
quit my day
job and do this whacky stuff full time.
Other sites were also scrapping these same
popular forum posts and putting them on their sites as well. Starting around 2011, the Google Panda updates started rolling around and
kicked the site out of the web (not completely though)! The site still brings me
some traffic every day (around 2,500 a day right now), and I have not touched
the site since 2011. As you can see the site is dying, but the amount of
work I put into it vs the amount of money I made from it was insane though.
And I admit it, the site deserved the Panda Slap. I never
complained, and I don't
care, I'll just learn from the experience and move on.
Best Places to get Duplicate Content From
As you can see, scrapper sites (or duplicate content sites) are a dying fad!
They worked nicely up until the Panda / Penguin updates started rolling out in 2011, now
you must focus on unique content if you are looking to get massive search engine
traffic. However, If you are still interested in obtaining a tiny amount
of traffic from making duplicate content
sites, then read on..
You should only have about 3% or less of your total content
from "ezine" article sites like the ones mentioned above. The rest
should be taken from less well known sites that have not been around for a long
time. So where do you get duplicate content from? Well this is a good question and I can say it is not easy. It does take time to construct a site from
duplicate content because you need to take content from a
multitude of sites. Also you should generally make sure the content is legal to
take (not copyrighted). I like to browse forum topics and take
content from forum posts or news group discussions. I think forums are very
good places to look for content. You can join chat rooms, copy lectures taken
from people in the chat rooms, and use them for content. But the key here is to make sure the
content you take is not just from one site or from a couple sites. It
must be very sporadic and not too obvious to Google that the content on your
site is not just duplicated from just one site.
Another alternative to obtaining duplicate content from article housing sites
(sites like ezinearticles.com articlecity.com, and goarticles.com), is to take
the articles from these sites and use a "spinner" program. A "spinner"
program works by scrambling text around essentially rewording it to make it
appear more unique. There are many of these programs available, but the one I like
best is elite article marketing tools. These programs still take some time to scramble
the text correctly, but you should have no problem with elite article marketing tools.
The problem with spinning articles is sometimes they are kind of crummy to read,
so it is up to you if you want to experiment with this.
 Content
is King!
Overall if you want a strong site that will last for years down the road,
then you simply can't go wrong with unique content that users actually enjoy
reading. Remember content is KING on the Internet! I have a feeling as time goes by, search engines will get
stronger and stronger at weeding out duplicate content, and even content that is
simply not good to read. So do yourself a favor
now and stay away from duplicate content as much as you can. Down the road
your website will perform better and be much stronger with original content
instead of duplicate content. Currently, it is possible to get away with
using duplicate content somewhat if it is done correctly. Me personally, I
have moved onward to 100% unique content written by humans only for now on :)
I am done with duplicate content.
Good luck! I hope this article helps with your internet marketing
decisions!
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