Chrome blocked sites used by Googles Panda update

[SpecialCase]

Google's Panda update said it used Chrome users blocked sites lists as a benchmark for what they now term poor quality content. They said the Panda update effectively took about 85% of them out of the search results.

This got me thinking, it would be very nice to discover what are the exact sites they don't like.

Does anyone know if there is an archive of what these sites might be?

Or if none exists, maybe if people could share their Chrome blocked sites on here we might get an idea?

[mediabase]

Hi Special, As Google unveiled the “Panda” algorithm change that targeted low quality content sites. Around the same time, they released a feature for the Google Chrome browser that gave users an option to block a site from showing up in their personal search results.

Thus — if you’re using Google Chrome as your browser — if you search for something and get what you think is a crummy content farm, you can click a button and never see that site show up in your results again.

And of course, Google gets to gather all that information on how many times each site has been blocked.

Google was clear that they did not use that as a ranking signal in the Panda algorithm change; however, they did compare the effects of the Panda change to that block list, and found an 84% overlap, which they considered an excellent signal that they were on the right path.

Google announced an update to their algorithm that will take all of that data on blocked sites and use it as a ranking signal. So now when tons of people choose to delete a site from their search results, that information may be used to downrank that site from everyone’s search results.

In some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms. In addition, this change also goes deeper into the “long tail” of low-quality websites to return higher-quality results where the algorithm might not have been able to make an assessment before.

Google also stated that this change will be much smaller in scope than the original Panda algorithm update, affecting only about 2% of search queries, rather than the 12% that Panda affected.

We’ll have to wait and see whether this is a change that can be effectively gamed (say, by encouraging a mass of Twitter followers to do a search with Chrome and block the competition) but if this algorithm update is finally going to get crummy eHow and Yahoo Ask garbage out of my search results, I welcome it!

For more details please refer to the website:

Factors affecting when panda updates.

I hope that you will find the solution.

[loopyal]

I think this is venturing into dangerous ground. Imagine if thousands of anti-Rush Limbaugh fans put his site into their block list and google stopped displaying his site, then all his fans did the same to Obama We would end up with people blocking their competition

[SpecialCase]

Thanks for the info, I didn't know Google were going as far as deranking sites based on the blocks.

I'm not sure the Panda update has done a great job in deranking the crap in my industry though. All the update has done for me so far is lower my rankings.. and change the angle to how I attack SEO. I'm hoping my competition doesn't know about writing decent content giving me the edge over them once I've overhauled my pages.

"Google was clear that they did not use that as a ranking signal in the Panda algorithm change; however, they did compare the effects of the Panda change to that block list, and found an 84% overlap, which they considered an excellent signal that they were on the right path."

The question still remains though about the sites Google deems to be poor quality (the 84%), I'm probably just dreaming if I think I'd ever get to see the compiled list of Chrome users blocked sites though!

[TheSymmetran]

Alan,

Google was sued back in mid-2000s, the judicial system has affirmed (and Google won that case) that Google search results are protected first amendment OPINIONATED speech and Google has every right to do as it pleases with its results. So be it if their wishes are politically biased.

Having said that, Google will never utilize one factor to penalize a site, if all factors are looking mighty well for a Rush L. site or fan site but the Google Chrome user blockage stats, then I strongly doubt that will have any significant impact on rankings, if any at all. After all, Google nowadays considers such abuses when introducing a factor and may do away with a factor if it becomes abused as such. Especially, on such a little known thing as Chrome site blocking. I mean, I have been doing SEO on and off for a few years now and consider myself fairly updated and tech savvy, and I just found out about this option smh doubt the bast majority of Chrome users even know this exists, let alone try to use it. As such, any potential abuses of this should for now easily stick out to Google.

Let us not forget Google does have manual review and appeals in place as well and if they find their automated code screwed up, they will re-evaluate and readjust the rankings again.