So what's Google Panda and does it affect me?

Google Panda, is the codename given to Google’s latest (and most significant) algorithm update which went live last week. 99% of the time, ongoing changes to how Google orders search results has little affect on every day authentic sites, as much of their work is about hiding poor quality sites from their users’ eyes. This is different.

The consequences of Google Panda are massive, and a many legit sites have suffered, the forums are awash with web site owners simply not knowing where to turn since Google cut off all their traffic. While it's been great at cutting out the low quality sites from results pages, some genuine sites have been hit.

There was always an emphasis on high quality content, and we would always encourage our clients to populate their site with ongoing interesting, keyword rich content. But that doesn’t always apply. Not all sites fit into the ‘news’ style content delivery, and not all sites need reams and reams of ‘useful’ content to be of relevance to the user. Some smaller SMEs with more simple sites seem to have been caught up in the storm. 

The site may be working perfectly well as a smallish brochure-ware site that simply explains the business and leads users through to a contact us form, typically converting well for the right type of visitor. However, Google’s new tough approach to working out what users will deem ‘useful’ content may now work against them.

Google’s always used an array of factors to rank a site, including age of copy, number of relevant back-links, click throughs and bounce rates (there’s a very good reason Google analytics is free!), keyword density etc.. However, in a reaction to the dark world of link farms (companies you pay to make thousands of bogus links to your site) and content farms (sites which just copy content, attract traffic and enjoy advertising revenue), it can be speculated (Google are very secretive about how they rank sites) that original, recent content is now a much more important aspect in search engine results.

What does Google consider high-quality?

Original content and information: research, in-depth reports, and thoughtful analysis. Initially, that may seem harsh, as not all companies have blogs, news, whitepapers or reports. However, on reflection this is Google telling us what people want. From analysing millions of sites, they know that users like new relevant content.

Does your site update regularly or have you fallen into the brochure-ware trap? Bottom line is, although it’s forced many companies to rethink their online strategy, it’s overall a positive move, enabling genuine, legit sites who value content to soar to the top of the rankings.

Hands up time for us, writing content for blogs (like this!) at Rawnet is something that may get forgotten about in busy weeks, but it’s certainly something we’ll be spending more time on in the future!

blog comments powered by Disqus