Google Panda Update Rollout Worldwide

If you are not yet aware, Google rolled out the second phase of its Panda update this week, with similar results across the globe that happened on Google.com in February.  They also made some tweaks to the U.S. version.

What this update continues to show us is that Google is looking for ways to stamp out spam in the form of spinners, copy and pasted content, and stolen content.  Since much of this behavior is found on what are now termed “content farms,” these type of sites were targeted.

You need to be honest with yourself, that Squidoo is a content farm.  It is group site that is collecting content written by numerous authors.  Some of the content on Squidoo is excellent, but there is still a lot of abuse, and stolen or plagiarized content.

This is why Squidoo is trying to come down hard on duplicate content, at least that is what they say they are doing.

In order to protect your lenses, you can review them, and look for some specific vulnerable areas that will show up first when Squidoo is searching for plagiarized content.

• Introduction–Face it folks, if your introduction is copy and pasted from another site, eventually Squidoo’s filters will find it.  This is the most obvious part of your lens, the first thing people see, and what gets copied the most when blurbs are picked up by Squidoo and other sites.
• Large quoted blocks of text–Don’t feel that you cannot quote anyone anymore.  You can.  However, it is best if you limit your quoted text to no more than about 20% of your entire text on your lens.  Any more, and really, you are copying someone else’s work.
• Duplication with permission–This is a weird gray area, that is going to cause some problems for people.  Frankly, some duplication is really okay, and unavoidable.  This is especially true if you want to show someone’s voice in your lens.  For instance, I use content that belongs to some of my artists with their permission all of the time, on lenses and other sites.  This by itself is not really a problem for Google, but if that is all you write on Squidoo, you will get nailed at some point.  Squidoo is now taking the stance that no duplication is allowed at all, but what they really want is to get rid of plagiarized content.  Deciding which is which can be difficult for them.
• Lenses that just are copies of Amazon pages–If you are using the exact same descriptions as Amazon, without any of your own text or rewording, and that is your entire text on your lens, that needs to be changed.  In essence, you are creating a copy of the page Amazon already has, so you are plagiarizing them.  That will not help Squidoo grow, and really, what are you offering the reader that Amazon is not already doing.
• Blatant violations of Squidoo TOS–Have you been getting away with violations of TOS?  Well, it is time to get rid of those lenses or fix them.  Squidoo does not want to be breaking the Adsense TOS in a time when Google is scrutinizing websites.  Most of the TOS on Squidoo are there because Adsense has them.

Most of us have old lenses that we wrote when we were newbies that we do not even remember violated some rule, or the rule changed along the way.  It is possible that these type of lenses will get caught in a filter at some point, but if they are that unnoticeable that you haven’t fixed them by now, then don’t bother unless you need to.  All of the best producing lenses are ones that you look at constantly.  They should be in excellent shape, and they are the ones that are making the “big” money.  Let the rest go, and concentrate on building more and better lenses that convert.

We will probably see some effect of the most recent Google change over the next few weeks, especially if your topics get a lot of traffic from countries outside the U.S.  Squidoo should be affected about the same way it was for the first rollout, which was minimally at most.