Google Panda Explained
The search engine Google initiated a series on updates to their ranking algorithm which they named the Panda update. Despite the cute and cuddy name the fallout has been but that, with many webmasters and SEOs having their Google rankings go into free fall and watching their traffic and income vanish over night.
Even worse, none of the typical strategies that one could use to overcome any penalties before seem to be working, with many sites still penalized many months later. Let's take a look at what Panda is and what changes to your site and search engine optimization strategy might help you overcome your loss in rankings.
Google Panda was named after a Google engineer named Navneet Panda. It is interesting to look at his work with Google to gain some insight into the Panda update. He is an expert in machine learning and created a Machine Learning Algorithm (MLA) for Google. Basically what that does allow the Google algorithm to make predictive choices based on human preferences. So to understand Panda you have to understand that Google is now ranking what an actual human would like to see in the results, not a bot that can be manipulated.
Panda works as a quality filter on the search results where they are using human survey data to reward and punish sites in the index. The quality filter appears to override the old ranking factors like domain authority as well.
Before Panda factors like keyword anchors, link volume, link quality, link velocity, domain age and trust as well as onpage factors were the main determinants of where you ranked.
Now with the Panda update since they are trying to serve up results for surfers rather than SEOs there is a focus on the quality of the website and the information on it.
In order to not get penalized by Google's Panda quality filter you want to make sure your site has high quality text and content. You want the surfer to be engaged with your site. Find ways to do that. Increased traffic, click through rates, low bounce rate, repeat visits and onsite search queries send a signal to Google that a real live person likes your site and the site should be trusted and ranked appropriately.
So in summary in addition to your other SEO techniques you want to make sure you are delivering a great website experience to the surfer. Build for people, not for Google.
Good luck on getting your rankings back if you lost them.
Even worse, none of the typical strategies that one could use to overcome any penalties before seem to be working, with many sites still penalized many months later. Let's take a look at what Panda is and what changes to your site and search engine optimization strategy might help you overcome your loss in rankings.
Google Panda was named after a Google engineer named Navneet Panda. It is interesting to look at his work with Google to gain some insight into the Panda update. He is an expert in machine learning and created a Machine Learning Algorithm (MLA) for Google. Basically what that does allow the Google algorithm to make predictive choices based on human preferences. So to understand Panda you have to understand that Google is now ranking what an actual human would like to see in the results, not a bot that can be manipulated.
Panda works as a quality filter on the search results where they are using human survey data to reward and punish sites in the index. The quality filter appears to override the old ranking factors like domain authority as well.
Before Panda factors like keyword anchors, link volume, link quality, link velocity, domain age and trust as well as onpage factors were the main determinants of where you ranked.
Now with the Panda update since they are trying to serve up results for surfers rather than SEOs there is a focus on the quality of the website and the information on it.
In order to not get penalized by Google's Panda quality filter you want to make sure your site has high quality text and content. You want the surfer to be engaged with your site. Find ways to do that. Increased traffic, click through rates, low bounce rate, repeat visits and onsite search queries send a signal to Google that a real live person likes your site and the site should be trusted and ranked appropriately.
So in summary in addition to your other SEO techniques you want to make sure you are delivering a great website experience to the surfer. Build for people, not for Google.
Good luck on getting your rankings back if you lost them.
Source...