As the Farmer/Panda update continues to confuse and hurt some webmasters, we still do not have a solid answer on how to escape this update.
That being said, we had our fair share of fun reporting on the update. But here is a new one.
A webmaster came into the Google Webmaster Help forums complaining that his site tanked due to the Google Farmer/Panda update. People were telling him that the reason his site was impacted was because it had a lot of low-quality content taken from third-party sources. He didn't want to hear it.
So Googler, Wysz who started the Google Panda support thread where Webmasters can come and complain and since then, has given webmasters one tip on how to rescue their site from this update, came in to slap down this webmaster.
Wysz said in short, "Scraping content from another source without adding value violates our guidelines." But the way he documented it was pretty funny, at least to me.
Several people have already noted the core issue with your site, but let me try and state it in relation to our Quality Guidelines, since sites which violate these guidelines may not do well in Google, or may be removed completely.In our guidelines, we warn against creating pages with little or no original content, and we even have a dedicated Help Center article on the topic which notes scraped (copied) content as an example of something that doesn't add value for users.
Now let's take a look at an example page on your site: http://www.soccerhights.com/usa-vs-argentina/
Here's an excerpt: "United States vs Argentina will execute battle since the U.S. returns to New Meadowlands Stadium to engage in recreation a planet power just the once more."
The first reply to your post from LarGibbon asks if this content was auto-translated or spun, as it doesn't sound quite right.
Now, let's look at a page on a different site: http://www.goal.com/en-us/match/58822/usa-vs-argentina/preview
Here's a snippet: "The United States and Argentina will do battle as the U.S. returns to New Meadowlands Stadium to play a world power once more."
Goal.com says "do battle." Your site says "execute battle." Goal.com says "play a world power." Your site says "engage in recreation a planet power."
Scraping content from another source without adding value violates our guidelines.
I call that, Google Smacks!
Our ongoing coverage and stories on the Content Farmer/Panda update:
- Google Mocking Those Impacted By Farmer/Panda Update?
- Is Google Rolling Out A Farmer / Panda Update?
- Status Check: Google Panda / Farmer Rebounds & UK Migration
- Coming Soon: Panda/Farmer Update At Google UK
- Being Rescued From The Google Panda / Farmer Update
- When To Use 404, NoIndex & 301 Redirects In Farmer/Panda Fix
- 40% Of SEOs Say Farmer/Panda Hurt Their Sites In Google
- Google: Remove Low Quality Content If You Were Impacted By Farmer/Panda
- I'm Hit! Get Your Google Rankings Back After Farmer/Panda
- How to Regain Your Rankings After the Farmer Update
- SEOs Chew On Wired's Interview With Cutts & Singhal On Farmer Update
- What's Your Name? Farmer Or Panda?
- Was Google Too Hasty with the Farmer Update? SEO's Discuss Good & Bad
- Google Accidentally Label Your Site As A Content Farm? Get Help Here
- Shocking: Google To Tweak Content Farm Algorithm
- Poll: Were You Impacted By The Google Farmer Update?
- Google Farmer Update Support Groups
- Google's Farmer Update Live: 12% Of Google's Results Forever Changed
- Google Warns Of "Big Changes Here Very Shortly"
- Correction: Google's Scraper Algorithm Now Live, Not Content Farms
- Google's Content Farm Algorithm Harm You? Categorize Your Site To Fix It.
- Confirmed: Google's Content Farm Algorithm Live! Sites Are Dropping!
- Google's Next Target: Content Farms & On Page Spam
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
