Thriving after Panda, Penguin, and Butterfly?

Alright, I made the “butterfly” part up. But who knows – it just could be what the next Google algorithm update will be called.

In which case Mohammed Ali’s slogan would ring true for many website owners: floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee!

In the following video I share an experience where Google took me to school to make me relearn a lesson I hadn’t taken too seriously for a while.

Questions: Is it possible to survive after the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates? Is it even worth trying? What if we do everything right and still get penalized by Google?

First off, yes it is possible to survive Google’s algorithm updates. Google has been changing their ranking algorithm back and forth for many years now and as frustrating as it is, those changes do come with certain advantages (opportunities) IF you set yourself up to benefit from them.

What do I mean by that? In simple English: keep your online presence blameless. Make sure Google finds no fault with anything related to your site – be it content on your site, server load times, or the links pointing back to your site. Make the Google bots fall head over heels in love with your site!

This might sound super complicated (not to mention – corny) and I am not suggesting that it isn’t, but reality is, it is so worth it in the long run.

Look at your website as if it were a million dollar car. Would you not use the finest polish to polish it with, and the finest oil when having an oil change done? In the same way you want to also treat your sites with the finest content, the finest backlinks, etc.

Not having to worry about Google coming after you takes a huge burden off of your shoulders. Sure there are shortcuts to getting top Google rankings, but unless you are prepared to – in the long run – give up the sites that you are using questionable shortcuts on, don’t use them.

Coming clean with my business practices online was one of the best decisions I ever made (in my business). I used to always look for shortcuts on how to get what I wanted – faster – but after two rather frustrating years of doing that, I realized that I would have gotten a lot further ahead if I had done things the legit way instead.

Here is what happens: every time the Google algorithm changes, sites – that used frowned-upon methods to get their ranking – all of a sudden become vulnerable. If your sites are strong and they continue to find favor in Google’s eyes, they all of a sudden stand a fairly good chance at outranking the other disobedient sites.

I am not a purist by any means, but I just think/know that for the most part it is a lot easier to actually give Google what they want then to give them something completely different and try to convince them that it is exactly what they want. You see the difference?

A counter argument to that way of thinking is: what if I do everything right and Google still decides to screw me over?

It does happen, I know, but when/if it does happen (say Google deindexes your site), you can simply ask them to do a manual review of your site and chances are really good they will let you back in and re-index your site. Contrary to it is very evident that you broke their rules – in which case they are hesitant to consider reindexing your site.

This has happened to me a few times too already with some of my older auto-blogs, which is just another reason I appose them so much. I have done well with them in the past, and I know some people are still doing really well with them, but fact is this: auto-blogs are a ticking time-bomb.

That is it for my rant on auto-blogs 🙂 hehe.

Anyways, getting back on topic: it is still important to stay up to date with what Google expects from high ranking sites, but rather then to use that knowledge to “game” them, use it to please them. Don’t treat Google like an enemy – but spoil them like a king and they will proudly honor you like a son. It’s a shift in the way you look at it!

Having said all that, what exactly is Google expecting from us? Stay tuned for my next email to have that answered.