Pandabot is a downloadable software that mimics real users, using BOT traffic from proxies. The goal of the service is to increase the search engine ranking position of keywords in Google by tricking the search engines into seeing “real” people searching, finding, clicking and browsing your website. In theory this makes sense but in practice Pandabot falls short for two main reasons.

1) Proxies – Fake It Till You Make It Get Penalized

Yes, we all love to use proxies for anonymity but the problem with proxies is they tend to be finite in nature or worse, leave a huge footprint due to their limited pool (albeit large). This is akin to the Private Blog Network gold rush of backlinks a few years ago, where people were ranking left and right for months, and then got wiped out. Whenever there is a large amount of people (in this case free users on Pandabot using a service) it dilutes its power and starts to build footprints. Sometimes there are less than 2,000 users in the network. In a world of 7 billion people, this has epic disaster written all over it. Similar to how Google slapped all those associated with BuildMyRank, it wouldn’t seem a far stretch to do the same covertly to those getting traffic from this network.

2) BlackHat Community – Birds of a Feather Get Burnt Together

The blackhat community is critical to push the boundaries of SEO, but anyone that has been following blackhatworld or other internet marketing forums knows once something gets very popular, Google begins to investigate. This has happened time and time again, especially on blackhatworld which is where Pandabot is promoted. Pandabot is huge on blackhatworld, probably because everyone is looking for something “free”. Here is what Matt Cutts had to say after a popular BHW service got too big

Matt Cutts may have moved on, but the determination and intense scrutiny of the Google Webmaster Spam team is all over blackhatworld. Here is an excerpt from agentblackhat’s blog

Pandabot is a terrific idea and perfect for SEO hobbyists. Real professionals running client Search Engine Optimization services can’t afford to risk their client’s websites, and top affiliate managers can’t risk their money sites. The solution is Crowd Search Me.

Unlike Pandabot it’s cloud based, so there are no downloads. As you know downloading and running software can be a pain and is not truly automated. Crowd Search Me runs 24/7 without ever having to intervene.

It’s a network of real people on residential IPs, not proxies or faked user stats. Pandabot is proud of the fact it’s just proxies. While this allows it to be free, it also is its biggest weakness; by paying random people outside of the traditional Internet Marketing niche, such as work at home moms and people looking to earn money from home, Crowd Search Me has taken years to create but they have done it right.

Crowd Search Me is an enterprise solution for real businesses, client SEO, and money sites. Pandabot is good if you are running a hobby website, but falls short in terms of a wider range of real ips, not cloud based, and a footprint the likes we haven’t seen since Big Foot.