Why Separate Subdomains for Content Farms Might Fix Panda
By Mark Ewbie
Dealing with Panda
This piece discusses the HubPages subdomain approach to dealing with the Panda algorithm disaster.
It is possible that separating author content into individual subdomains will force Panda to reassess the content quality indicators at an author rather than site level.
Whether this proves to be the final solution to the Panda problem remains to be seen.
We continue to watch our stats and keep our fingers crossed that the subdomain fix for Panda will work.
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Using SubDomains to Fix the Panda Problem
I thought I’d regurgitate some SEO stuff in a manner where a human might be able to understand it.
There are a lot of experts on the web, all talking in an expert way, which unless you are prepared to spend ridiculous amounts of time reading (as I was) – you will never get to grips with.
First of all.
What is a subdomain?
What is a domain even?
And what the hell are my qualifications for this?
Last things first.
You don’t need qualifications to pontificate endlessly across blogs, sites, forums, Twitter in order to appear as an expert.
It is only by reading a huge amount of utter twaddle that it is possible to form some sort of opinion of what the facts might be.
I am not an expert, but I can speed read.
A domain is the website address. As an example that might be hubpages.com. The www bit on the front doesn’t seem necessary anymore – finally the tech guys have realised that if everything is a www what is the point.
A subdomain is an area within that address. HubPages have come up with a brilliant idea, of which more later, to separate authors into their own subdomains.
Therefore all my work is now under the subdomain markewbie.hubpages.com.
Informative Stuff
At this point, if you are a normal person, you may be losing the will to live.
Where are the jokes?
Where is something of vague interest to someone who is not a total girl friend less nerd?
Well, look guys, someone has to do this stuff.
Just occasionally people are grateful to read something that gives them a tiny bit of information that might have some use.
I don’t normally supply it, but boy, when I feel I know something there’s not much can hold me back.
Do you want to know what a content farm is as well? I’m on a roll here.
It’s a place where a variety of authors write a variety of quality on a variety of subjects. The standards range through pretty much the whole, er, range of writing abilities. Add in an army of spammers, scanners and copiers doing their best to make a few bucks and you have a content farm picture.
They were possibly the target for the Panda algorithm change. Don’t ask about algorithms, I’m tired of being useful and getting a bit edgy. I don’t get paid for this you know.
What Google is trying to do is to make searching more useful. By improving their search algorithm they hoped to reduce some of the garbage from the search results.
How Does it Work?
Now no one knows how this works.
It’s quite likely most of the Google team, including the guy who wrote it, don’t know either.
That’s the way it is with complex computer systems.
When it’s put together there is a brief understanding and then it fades quickly.
The rest of us, I’m including myself with the SEO guys until they find out, try to fathom out what is going on.
Given that virtually everything in HubPages, a content farm or mixed writing site if we’re being PC, dropped like a stone – it is unlikely that the algorithm can identify quality pages.
Because there is some very high quality on HubPages. Not much, and most of it written by me, but high all the same.
I joke of course.
There is also a great steaming pile of dogs doo-doos residing under the hubpages.com domain.
So much so - that despite the best efforts of the contributors and the staff - it is virtually impossible to clean sufficiently. And anyway, as fast as it’s cleaned – it gets dirty again. Those copiers work pretty damn quick. Respect.
Not really. I hate them.
A Trip Out with the Panda
Let’s imagine the Panda is out for a walk, the SEO guys call it a deep search or something, and is looking for bamboo.
I mean spam.
It can tell what bad quality is – is it copied, is it thin, is it spammy?
It looks in the field it is passing, the HubPages field, and the field is largely crap with some choice bamboo scattered around.
“I can’t be assed” it thinks to itself, and puts a foreclosure notice on the field. Now no one will go there.
The Farmer who owns the field, let’s call him Paul Edmondson for the sake of this, is disappointed. He likes Pandas and has developed this field for the sole purpose of feeding them. The crops are sown, the Panda visits, eats the crops and craps on the field, and the cycle of life is repeated. If the Panda won’t visit…
So Paul has a great idea.
Btw, is this brown nosed enough to win the competition? Ah well, whatever.
Paul’s Idea
What if I separate the good bamboo from the bad?
After many weeks of work he has set up two hundred thousand smaller fields, very small in fact.
The Panda comes along.
He can see there are some terrible crops and he quickly puts the foreclosure notices back up again.
There are some good crops too.
These he visits, eats and craps, and those fields begin to flourish.
He waves at Paul, and Paul waves back. Out in the world of internet land the web is buzzing with the possibilities. By assigning individual responsibility to quality authors just maybe they can get some traffic and the Panda has done it’s job.
Maybe this is what Google, the Zoo owner… I’ll stop now. It wasn’t much of an analogy anyway.
One minor thing puzzles me. Is what I have written above an example of the spammy irritating crap that litters the web, or is it quality content? Would a Panda eat it in other words?
Only one way to find out. Press that Publish button. We are all farmers now.
Comments
Quality bamboo, that's definitely the answer. Thanks Case.
Nicely explained, and with humor! Fun always make a lesson easier to understand. ;-)
So, now, I must go do some housecleaning, as it seems apparent that the Panda won't eat poetry, so I must pull those weeds.
Voted up & useful.
Thanks Dizzy. Don't pull up any weeds just yet, and see what happens would be my entirely non expert advice. It will probably take a month or so of watching the forums fill up with feedback to be able to see what is happening.
I mean, OK, if you have a load of copied spam content then... but I have a feeling you don't.
I like your analogy Mark! Farmers for a zoo. We are sowing seeds in a field - it is more of an allotment now than a field. Voted up :)
I like "allotment" Izzy. Finger crossed for a rich harvest and so on. Perhaps we should all go to some bizarre version of a Harvest Festival, with our pages in our hands.
How do we get moved to subdomain? Is it only available to selected hubbers?
fayans... you can choose to move now using this link...
http://hubpages.com/my/profile/subdomain
or wait till the end of month when everyone will be moved.
This is the best answer to a puzzled comment that I've ever seen! Thank you, Mark Ewbie. This is why I love you - you speak English (as opposed to tech). I still need to ask what you mean every now and then, it being the Queen's English and all, but...well, you know what I mean.
I continue to think you're an awesome hubber, with the best avatar, btw. :-)
Hi Motown, very grateful to you for posing the question in the first place. It got me thinking. No doubt some techy will come along and say it isn't the right answer, it's not a real Panda - that's what techies do.
Meanwhile we all wait to see what that Panda thinks of us...
Thanks mark. I was inspired to get my subthingy when you said how easy tech it was.Didn't realise it was going to happen next month without me doing a thing.Guess which option I would have gone with if I had known that beforehand? Nevertheless, these blue linkey things are great. I clicked on one in the Paul Edmonson thread on subdomains. As you can see my techno speak and knowledge continues to grow exponentially.I give you much of the credit.
I am very impressed with your tech speak and will now add you to my list of experts. If you had a few letters after your name as well...
The analogy works for me. It's my little field, MINE I tell you! Yoo-hoo, Panda, lookee here! Up, useful, funny.
Lol.. that's cheating. Yep, we all need to be waving our crunchy (do they like crunchy?) bamboo sticks in the Panda's face.
I can see the next post on the SEO Gurus forum - "Have HubPage authors finally lost it?"
I liked the analogy too...I'm hoping Panda takes a crap in my field sometime soon. Till then, I'm trying to buy Bamboo at the grocery store, but they're usually out when I go. Sigh.
Hubs on Bamboo!! There's your winner right there. Simone, get that comp organised.
Genius, Mark Ewbie. I'm going to start my first bamboo hub right now! :P
Personally, I think we all lost it months ago. This is our own little world of insanity. I like it here.
Right now, we're all in the waiting mode, to see if the Panda likes our field. Is our crop good, tasty bamboo? or just chaff for the masses that Panda won't eat?
You've done a great job here, Mark, explaining the new farm. Now if you would just explain the real difference between bamboo and chaff. I think we all have a little fear here that we will be left behind when the Panda passes the HP farm, and only time will tell.
Hey Mark, I got my subdomain yesterday. Now I know I have my own little field in the content farm and can plant to my little heart's content. No remarkable changes yet--they said your hits would go up if you write well, down if you're doing crap. I wonder what no change means, if anything.
I wish, oh how I wish I knew the difference. Why are only half my hubs indexed? Is it because the rest are not worth doing until later? Not on message enough? And what is the message anyway?
I'm going to fret until Monday and see what's happening.
Hey, you did a great job on this article. Do you know where I can get some information on the whole panda thing? I mean, besides your wonderful article of course. All I've been finding is the same content on it over and over. Your article is the first one that said anything remotely new and I'd like to look more into it.
Another fun-to-read hub by the master of wit-infused information! I got my subdomain last night because of you, and think it made a difference immediately. Yay team!
I'm sorry Jessica but I don't have a link. Others might do. I have simply read a lot of SEO forums and other posts for the last four months.. and I come up with a story about a Panda and some bamboo.
The other thing is that all the sites out there are opinions. They can give their view, but no one actually knows how the algorithm works. And Google won't say exactly.
The one thing we do seem to know is that 'bad' content can damage your site.
Thanks TK, I am pretending to be a guru. This will lead to trouble.
Well, when you put it like that ... I still have no idea what's going on.
Skidoosh. The panda hates me. I don't grow bamboo. I grow panda-bane. Will wait until I'm automatically moved to my sub-gum-thingy as I'm technologically challenged. TY for the info!
Guys, it made sense to me when I typed it.
Yeah, but you're a stick-man.
You know, Mark, you're very good at this. Keep up the great work. I'm one of those visual learners, so this all makes sense.. sort of.. anyway, I also like bamboo.
Does this mean that we are now organic content farmers?
Great information. Flag up and awesome!
Mark, clever and fun Hub. I think everyone's pretty much waiting to see whether the Panda likes their stuff or not. :/ Scarier still, from what I've heard, the old Panda comes around every couple of weeks (and who knows what changes in algorithms might/might not be made within that time... :/ ). For the last few months I've done little but spin my wheels over what I will/won't do with my online writing (and, of course, study what's showing up in the forums). I just decided to stop worrying about the Panda and go with my instincts. Here's a crazy instinct on which I've acted: I closed down any accounts like Facebook or anything that looks at all like social networking. I decided to go with a "me, me, me" (as a writer) approach (obnoxious as that may be LOL). Contrary even to real trends, and contrary to the latest wisdom, I just think, in the long run, we're better off to polish up that reputation/presentation as writers and be nothing but writers (that is if we don't want our writing to be viewed as "social" writing). I know I'm going out on a giant limb on that one, and I'm prepared to find myself with no traffic (and maybe re-think my approach if I do). I just think common sense might tell us that the Panda isn't going particularly like a zillion "cheap" links from the likes of Facebook. We'll see. As Hubbers, we all have such different aims/experiences/Hubs. Going by one's own instincts (at least regarding his own material) can sometimes turn out to be best.
NWS - Stick-man is good, better than sick-man.
LM - organic puns are better than those artifical fertilisers.
Dallas - thanks!
Lisa, great comment and I need to FB share it with my friends. Just joking. I hear you loud and clear about several things.
Write what you want. Certainly doing that which comes naturally has to be the best (and easiest) way to write.
Forget about Panda and all that stuff. If you are writing honestly then eventually your search traffic should find it's proper place.
Facebook and social stuff. I find it alien, but suspect it is my only possibility for traffic. I don't really get the keyword thing, or write those on message useful pages people are looking for. So if I could get funnier or more outrageous - maybe people would share me. One funny cartoon, five sick bullet points - something like that.
Creative analogy, Mark! Well, I had to check something out to see if you chose that analogy for a reason. Now I know why Google calls it the Panda algorithm. Pandas actually do eat Bamboo because it's plentiful and they became adapted to it over the generations. The food value is generally lousy, so they need to eat a lot of it in order to find the good stuff. Sound familiar? Looks like Google did their research to come up with that name. Anyway, loved your hub and voted up.
Thanks Glenn, and nice analogy to you too. Yep, those Pandas sure wanted a lot of bamboo - guess they got what they wanted.
I'm starting to think that there isn't any rhyme or reason to panda, or Hubpages. Just when you start to see a pattern emerge, it suddenly becomes all random and weird and stuff (technical terminology). Thanks for the Hub.
Well maybe at times like this there's one book we can all turn to for guidance.. "My SEO Guide" coming soon to Kindle.
Before your book hits the market, I would suggest acquiring a self-promoting "click-here" arrow (humor of course). I understand that it does wonders. Will the book be under a pen name (Mark Ewbie) or another name? Thanks!
I take on board your comments about the giant arrow, which I have seen in use frequently, and also the nom de plume idea. I will probably stick with this name depending on advice from my lawyers.
Hey Mark - I am new to seo here but I enjoyed your hub about the subdomains. Do you think that subdomains carry the same page rank as the domain?
For example:
Would a link from xxxxxx.hubpages.com/myarticle pass the same link juice as a link from hubpages.com/myarticle
?
Hi Jennie, I am sorry, but I have no idea. With a bit of luck there will be an expert along in a minute.
I think you have clarified some things for me. An enjoyable read as usual. Thanks.
My pleasure tebo, thanks for commenting.
I haven't try this, just wait and see. Thanks for writing this. I hope the best for us. Cheers.....
Yep, fingers crossed for return of the search traffic.
Nice analogy Mark. I'm hoping the sub-domain thing works. I never earned vast sums here, but I'd like to return to pre-Panda levels at least.
We're all hoping Amanda, apart from those lucky few who have never heard of Panda or algorithms. Will we know in a week, a month, six months? It seems to have been a long time since the February hit.
And that is one of the funniest explanations I've read of SEO
Thanks Lissie! I've waded through a lot of serious stuff, but in the end for me, a Panda and some bamboo might as well cover the mysterious art of SEO.
Great write up mark thanks for the info and the laugh along the way. I have just switched to the subdomain toiday and could do with the Panda coming and taking one rather large dump in my field.
Lol Marty, I hope he does the business for you!
"I don’t normally supply it, but boy, when I feel I know something there’s not much can hold me back." I know how you feel!
Good explanation for the non-tech savvy people Mark. Nice to see Google Panda coming back in your work as well - you should make him a recurring character.
I do love my Panda! And he has given a lot of mileage for the last few months. Anyway, thanks Jason, if the explanation made it any easier to understand. Seemed to me that a lot of people did not have a clue what everyone else was chatting about.
Ah, Mark. Even with genius expositions such as this, some of us are still somewhat lost. Oh, well. I just keep looking at adsense. No great changes as of yet. :-D
Motown, behind the SEO scenes are some clever people doing fancy things to get traffic and rankings. Not me though, I'm just a poor content farmer.
Pay no attention to those people behind the scenes!! :D But, thanks for trying to help us understand. That's appreciated more than you know.
You done good! That is readable Mark! Watcha think yer doin?
OK I've seen it all now, a readable article about domains and sub domains!
Hard to believe you could do that!
thanks a lot for making me understand. Funny and informative post. Thanks..
Lol, thanks Earnest. You know, reading it back I'm less sure I understand it. But it makes a change from all those SEO forums. Not enough bamboo, but plenty of crap.
Sneha thanks to you for giving me an opportunity to plug this, yet again :).
Great job, Mark! Were you a teacher in your former life?? lol
Thanks Habee! No, I wasn't a teacher but you are not the first person to have suggested it. You are the second, the first was my grandmother when I was about ten.
I haven't a clue how this Panda Express thing works, I thought it was good Chinese food, but know if it likes you, readers will show up. Apparently I pulled the golden ring with one of my hubs because I had a ton of readers show up out of the blue. When they did, I made a comment about it in my comments that none of them voted on a poll I had. In response, I got this left-handed compliment in a comment saying the only reason I got all of this readership is because I hit the front page of some Google publication I know nothing about and everybody came to read my, in his considered opinion, hogwash and left as soon as they started reading.
Nevertheless, I agree with the others, great hub, I now understand a lot more about domains, subdomains, pandas, fields, farming, and crap.
Nice comment My Esoteric. I'll add hogwash to my lexicon - that may well come in handy at some point. Cheers.
Why does the male panda go through so many mates?
All he does is eats, shoots, and leaves
Boom! Boom!
lyndre, is that true of the male of almost every species?
CASE1WORKER 10 months ago
Wow! Mark well done. I understand the subdomain thingummy at last. I am off to the library to research panda friendly topics and have a list of bamboo sources. I am so glad that i now know it is all about Pandas!
VOTED UP! VOTED AWESOME!VOTED INTERESTING!