Google Panda
Google internally designates their projects, products and services by names like Penguin, Gingerbread, Cupcake or Panda, the subject of this blog.
Google Panda is a change to Google's search results ranking algorithm. Panda was first released in February 2011. The update was controversial and many sites felt they were unfairly affected by it. The purpose was to lower the page ranking of "low quality sites" and content farms while returning higher quality sites to the top of a search results page.
What Happens When A Panda Update Occurs?
Since the first launch of Panda there have been 24 additional updates or refreshers to it. Sometimes Google would announce an update, confirm what the specific changes were to the algorithm and the % impact on existing search results queries. Sometimes they would not provide any information regarding an update. If webmasters and SEO Marketing companies knew the specifics of the algorithm update they could make the changes to their clients' website pages. These actions would lessen the impact of a loss in page results positioning, or at least try to adjust to it.
Each time updates occur without an announcement by Google webmasters and SEOs know it. They see their client's page result positions change for a keyword or phrase search query and decline for no apparent reason. As an example, my client used to be in the 2nd position for plumbers Las Vegas. Now he's 9th. Why?
Future Panda Updates by Google
Google has recently announced it's unlikely they will announce future updates because they will be incorporated internally during the indexing process. This indexing is what a search engine does to pages within your website to gather metadata or keywords and store it so they can quickly access and generate search results.
It's Google site and they can certainly do what they want with their own website. Especially when the ad visibility is in the natural-organic free area of a search results paqe. Google's new process will put many webmasters and SEOs in the position of being reactive to a drop in page rankings for their clients' ads and not knowing the specific reasons as to why.
How to Lessen the Impact of Panda Updates
The key to lessening the impact of a Panda update is Google's underlying agenda for making the changes. This is certainly not a cure all but it may help. Google wants creative, unique, fresh and trustworthy website word content that user's will be glad they found. They also will rank your website based on the links your website has with other sites that are relevant to the content of your website and theirs.
Things You Can Do To Help
- If you add new products, services, or market areas to your business be sure to let your SEOs know. Fresh, new pages on your website can help.
- Get your customers to post legitimate, favorable reviews for your business on the internet.
- If you have a CMS website and the know how to update it please do so on a recurring basis. If you are not comfortable making the updates get an SEO professional to do it. A website that does not get fresh content and new web pages on a recurring basis will eventually go stale and lose visibility for search queries.
In Closing
Good page ranking and positioning for your website on Google is getting harder. As they release updates we may see changes in ad positioning for certain keywords and phrases.
Be aware that SEO requires constant maintenance, updating and tweaking to your website pages. The affect of these actions do not impact a page ranking overnight. Those who perform within Google's guidelines and agenda in the long run will come out on top. No pun intended.
