The days of ugly link building practices are now an epic piece in our history books as Google Panda rolled out its latest updates targeting those content copycats and website scrapers who want to rank quickly in SERPs. Copy and paste fanatics around the globe are probably chomping their finger nails in fear of Google Panda as no longer can you go to a website and copy one’s unique content and make it your own, a move that the search giant believes will clean up their search engine and allow only the true content providers to shine. So if you want to call Google Panda anything, call it the “farmer update” for its aim to clean up the spammy propaganda ending up in their search strings.
How Does Panda Work?
Google has an excellent written algorithm that works perfectly to scan the internet, retaining only the best of available content for its users. Since the latest Google Panda update occurred, it has become even easier to refine your search results by pushing all of its duplicated and scraped content down the results ladder, leaving the webmasters who rely on other people’s content scratching their heads and wondering what they can do next. Many of the wholesome websites call Google Panda a savior, while others believe this is just the company’s way of sticking it to the little man.
Google Panda, named after engineer Navneet Panda, offers little choice for content copiers and spinners but to revert from their actions and come up with content and link building practices that are geared towards a more relevant website approach. One webmaster we talked to even said they would have to shut down operations as they have no real content on their website. Saddening, I know. Actually, I didn’t lose a tear drop as this is good news for those writers and bloggers who are producing high quality content on a daily basis that never seem to do more than tread water. Google needed to simply find a way to combat the scores of ‘poor content’ sites and the Google Panda update was their answer to the problem, even if it had to eradicate a few thousand websites along the way.
How To Approach Panda
In general, if you do not have an excessive amount of advertising on your website or have no type of branding to your wares or articles, you will be largely affected by the Google Panda algorithm update and should look into a means of changing your schema for the next time Google Panda update comes knocking. If you have a travel website that has many duplicate reviews, or even an ecommerce store front with terrible product pages, then you will also be filed under the ‘deadbeat webmaster’ category in the Google Panda’s eyes and need to make the changes necessary so your ranking will not be adversely affected. The mighty chop of the Kung Fu Google Panda will not simply stop, so it’s about time to remove your automated websites, the product pages that have no meaning, and replace all of your copied content to reflect a style of your own.
Once Google Panda has cleaned up all of the irrelevant web contents globally, it will simply get smarter. If you have been affected by the duplicate content ninja, keep a few things in mind: Google Panda is not demonic nor out to put your business into the ground; users have basically evolved Google Panda into what it is today through feedback, surveys, and constant email communication about the veracity of their search engine. Should your website, again, have been affected adversely by the latest Google Panda update 2.5.2, then perhaps it is time to look at your websites content and either change it yourself or have it professionally written to ensure that the content is proper. Because the Google Panda Express will come back into town soon and again lower your site’s search authority if it doesn’t conform to its proper content, link building, and branding practices.
You need to step back and look at your website through the human-based eyes of Google Panda. Are you not branding properly? Is the message of the website, as a whole, easily conveyed through my content placement? Remember, Google Panda is a site-wide content, branding and link penalty, not simply a single page penalty. If a calculated percentage of your website’s pages fall below Google Panda’s quality based algorithm, then your whole site suffers. However, if you fix enough of these pages – which, the ones that are poor should become imminently clear – you may recover from the Beast of Burden people are dubbing the Google Panda.
29 Comments
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Darren
October 27, 2011 at 2:30 pm
I hear what you’re saying, but the Panda seems to have missed a lot of low-quality websites that still show up for many, many searches. That said, your advice is always the way to go if you want to build a stable, ranking website. If people don’t love your posts, your website is going to be hurting, with or without search engine traffic.
Greg Henderson
October 27, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Very true Darren. This just seems like another iteration on the way to perfecting the algorithm. And, early results do show some very low quality sites shooting up in the rankings. As of right now, the world of SEO is holding their breath for the next Panda update.
Darren
November 9, 2011 at 10:31 pm
Apparently the PageRank update was not even vaguely related, which isn’t surprising. Maybe the middle of the month will have another Panda update.
Greg Henderson
November 17, 2011 at 5:50 pm
It looks like we can expect Panda updates every 2-4 weeks. Google must be really trying to “perfect” this algorithm.
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Nishadha
October 28, 2011 at 6:54 am
Although the main target was getting rid of content farms, it is important to remember that good standing sites also got hit. And the constant tweaking will finally filter out the best sites. Even if you are not copying content you should be aware of basic SEO stuff like showing excerpts in tag pages etc to avoid the penalty.
briant
October 28, 2011 at 3:00 pm
nice point there..
Greg Henderson
November 9, 2011 at 10:27 pm
I know for sure one of my sites got hit. I definitely was not to happy about it. Trying to predict where these updates are heading is giving me a heart attack!
Roger Jignesh Parekh
October 28, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Although google panda was for content duplication and I realize that its algorithm is written perfectly so it can deal with the bad link strategy used to being website on top, and it refine the search very well but somehow low quality websites are still coming with different searches, I think they need to make it more stronger to give user actual results anyway Google is working well as compare to other SE and it’s safe to have good with us. Thanks for sharing all the procedure of Google panda, it was useful post for many people.
Greg Henderson
November 9, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Thanks Roger. I appreciate it. Yes, while Google is the best of the best, some of these updates baffle me with the low-quality and black-hatting sites rising ever higher in SERPs.
Danny
October 31, 2011 at 3:42 pm
I got hit by the panda as well. It was quite a surprise though because all my content is original.
But apparantly I had too many affiliate links on my site and Google doesn’t like that.
So I went and made my affiliate links nofollow and a couple weeks later when the panda came by again I was put back stronger than before.
Greg Henderson
November 9, 2011 at 10:30 pm
That was a very good move Danny. I ended up doing the same thing.
And most people I have talked to got hit negatively. I’m wondering where everyone is who made some strong moves up in the SERPs from these updates.
Ufone
November 2, 2011 at 10:08 am
There is no doubt that all small website owners don’t like effects of Panda, and even big business owners also get damage from it, overall it is one of the best step by Google to stop spamming and promote only quality websites in search result
Greg Henderson
November 9, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Yes, this update did favor some of the larger sites. What I am currently wondering: how did this guest post make it to a PR5?
Darren
November 9, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Whatever you did: do more of it! 🙂 It seems like this recent PR update has been pretty generous.
Admin
December 30, 2011 at 1:13 am
Hi Greg, just noticed as well. And by the look of things this PR might yet stay for a while. Congrats!
Ufone
January 31, 2012 at 3:48 pm
There are many websites who have good PR but Google panda damage their ranking, PR is different thing it has no link with Google Panda,
I am also amazed how this post get PR5 even homepage has PR3, its looking good sign that this blog will get high PR in next update, the quality of articles are superb and have direct traffic as well as organic traffic
Kostas
November 13, 2011 at 11:00 am
Actually the new panda update has a positive impact on my blog’s google rankings, in my opinion a good tip (except from quality and unique content) is to have links on your posts to high authority sites like wikipedia and edu sites, this might happen because google believes that if you link to these sites you provide useful information to the readers…
Greg Henderson
November 17, 2011 at 5:52 pm
I will definitely use this information on my site! Thanks a lot Kostas!
John
December 8, 2011 at 4:13 am
Thanks for the information on the Panda update. The search results are definitely different after the update. I agree with you that it is a good thing – there was a lot of junk in the search results.
Ankit Saini
December 12, 2011 at 7:27 am
You really give me an idea on panda update works and how to overcome from its effect..
Thanks buddy,
Greg Henderson
December 13, 2011 at 6:47 pm
No problem. Thanks Ankit!
focus503
December 17, 2011 at 12:36 am
Easy on the perfection claptrap.
The only ‘perfect’ thing man has ever known is his vision of his various gods.
Google is good, and certainly deserves it’s spot as the best that we’ve got but perfect? I think not.
Plenty of good sites have been hammered by the updates, and if the chatter is to be believed there’s plenty of shite floating to the top.
Susan
December 30, 2011 at 12:57 am
I didn’t have any duplicate content on my site, but I did write 200 unique articles over a period of a year and submitted them to article directories. My rankings were climbing super fast and then the Panda update came and dropped me right back down. It hurt at the time, but I can see why they did it. However, it does make me wonder how much further they plan on going in the future to make link building as natural as possible.
Mobilier
March 1, 2012 at 10:32 pm
Very interesting post and replies. Indeed very useful post when managing a website… saves a lot of time not doing useless work and especially appreciated the tip kostas talked about, will definitely use it in the near future.
However even though I think this update is a good thing for the overall web, I can’t help telling myself that google rules the trade world and that google is completely souvereign in his way of ruling… kinda scary.
Rita Dawson
April 30, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Great post! Thanks for the informative post! The panda ranking and the drop down of even the unique articles seems to have a very bad effect.
psychsoftpc
May 10, 2012 at 1:28 pm
we may have gotten hit as well, or perhaps we’re being punished for calling google evil on google+
Felicia Corrine
June 29, 2012 at 7:51 am
In one way the Google panda update is a good thing as it will help to keep up the quality of information in the Internet. Otherwise when the users browse through, they will get only duplicated content and irrelevant information. The marketers will be facing a tough job now as they have to focus more on genuine and quality content.
Felix
April 30, 2013 at 9:32 pm
This Panda update didnt effect my website Plasma God because its an affiliate of amazon and has oringal products on their side first. Plus its only the products that are similar. Not the site. Google Techs are still newbs when it comes to them try to stomp out us SEO wh0res.