This is what Panda looks like.

I’ve owned the site who’s stats you see pictured above for about 5 years. It’s been my test site for just about everything, from spammy link building to auto-generated content. I’m surprised it lasted in the index as long as it did!

It ranked at #1 for it’s main keyword phrase and was dipping between #6 and #1 for a secondary, higher traffic keyword phrase. That’s what the fluctuation was before December 31.

On December 31, Google sent me this:

It was nice of them to let me know!

The problem I’m certain Google has with the site is that it’s got 400 pages of auto-blogged content, most of which came from Yahoo Answers. Not unique and not bringing added value to the market, I agree.

I haven’t had a site banned or deindexed in YEARS, so this is actually a little exciting!

Why?

Because I want to see what it takes to get the site re-included in the index!

How to Get Back In Google After Panda

Now that’s I’ve got a great test case, I can test what it actually takes to get back into Google after a Panda de-indexing.

Here’s how I’m proceeding:

Step 1: Remove the offending content

I’m using the Redirection WordPress plugin to 301 redirect all the old, auto-generated content to the blog home page. No sense wasting the link juice those pages had, even if the pages themselves weren’t that great.

Once the 301′s are in place, all that crappy, old content goes in the WP Trash bin.

There are about 400 posts on the site, so it’ll take a while to get them all redirected properly. As soon as that’s done, we’ll move on to the next step – and I’ll update you as to the progress!

Have you lost any sites because of Panda? What was wrong with them?