Google update how google panda has changed website creation
Google update Panda, aside from Penguin, is one of the most common terms in search engine optimisation, and sometimes, not just to the Google users. It’s funny how Google chooses to name their algorithms with some artic animals. But not to digress much, the original Panda release was first announced by Google in January 2010, after which a sort of a “draft” of Panda was rolled out for US-based websites in 2011. This release affected 12% of the general queries on these sites, which is almost double from the last major update prior to Panda.
A brief description of Panda is that its original release was Google update targeted on sites with low quality content, where ‘low quality’ means content that you find yourself reading to a certain point, then you find it is all useless and you stop reading it altogether, because it just lacks the thing it states in its title that it should have. Such sites generated content that rank for keywords but have made just the bare minimum effort for SEO due to lack of competitive mindset. All the author wishes is that the users click on their ads when they land on some of these useless content, which happens to be the only goal of such publishers, sadly.
They rank well in keywords, which used to be the thing that gave them first place in search results pages. But users easily get annoyed when they land on such results and may even lead to some bad reputation on the search engine itself. Google’s business online is providing quality search and they would not agree that you should ruin their business. This is why the Google Panda had to be launched.
Google, Google update by launching Panda, made a huge leap to eradicate them and even after the initial 12% surge, the madness still didn’t stop and thus, the scrapper had to be updated. Check out some history of what happened just before Panda was released.
The scrapper and the farmer update - Google update in panda
In the SEO world, scrapping has very many different connotations. But in this particular case, this is the kind of scrapping that happens to ugly things. This connotes those poorly designed websites with annoying adverts all over and some tinge of useless content that covers less than an eight of the page that are nothing but literal copies of other websites, word by word. Though some still remain (because some content needs to remain as it is unchanged such as lyrics and compositions), there is just too much that was removed from 2010.
The scrapper update solved most of these problems. The previous case of having the first 6 results literally the same word by word has been eliminated to a huge percentage. This has resulted to some strict rules such that even pulling from RSS feeds without proper formatting for SEO could result in a terrible penalty that would be quite costly to recover from in terms of time and maybe even financially.
This scrapper update was followed closed by the farmer update which even got to penalize some legitimate websites which got to be marked “content farms.” These are websites that had content alright. Some legit, but a huge chunk of useless garbage also dubbed content. Some great examples include eHow which had some great content, but some just made it deserve the penalty. Anyway, it’s 2016 and eHow isn’t dead yet, which means they somehow recovered.
Google update Panda refreshes What Should We Expect From the Google update ? (2011 to 2015)
The name Panda still amuses me to date. I mean, who came up with such a name for such a thing? But anyway, not to digress too much, let us get straight to the point. From the farmer update, spammers had a nice time roaming the world of search engines and making fun of the previous algorithms that has tried to take them down… Until the Panda algorithm took action.
Some websites were so penalised to a point of losing over 84% of their previous organic traffic. Charts of the impact of this are available all over the internet, some never to be found through Google because of the algorithm itself.
There are so many sites that Panda hit hard. Some of them had user generated information, which is something that search engines value, but rely on spam content. These are the sites that witnessed the Panda apocalypse. The likes of HubPages which had a million indexed pages and little helpful content lost it all from the top to the bottom (a drop of 90%) that didn’t occur just once, but several times. Of course, they did try to regain their lost glory but never went anywhere close to what it used to be… very sad.
But however sad, the Panda was right. No one site was penalised for nothing at all. They all had offenses against the humans they pretended to serve. This is something the users should appreciate Google for as it allowed users to discover some legit services that were blocked away by the big clouds that bore no rain.
Another terrible experience s some of the freelancer generated content. 75% of the content provided by these sources was scrapped because of just a simple reason: poor quality work. And this is entirely the site owners’ fault. Because the freelancers are highly underpaid (as low as $3 per 500 words). One thing the content buyers need to understand is that they are paying for the time of the freelancer and time doesn’t go that cheap. When that person settles down to compose, what they bear in mind is the quality of pay they are getting and the proportionality is a simple one: the more the pay, the greater the effort to be put into this. The articles that contain real research are the ones where the freelancer is satisfied with his pay.
And so that takes us to a question, what should be done to avoid the wrath of the Panda? How does one escape such a tragic thing that has taken down some of the biggest players in the field such as Yahoo! and About.com? Let’s see some general guidelines:
1. Publish Panda worthy content - Google update in panda
But that’s not something that I’m going to do any kind of elaboration on. No! It’s just too obvious what you need to do to meet this requirement. In fact, I’m just going to give you just one piece of advice on this one. Simply write something that won’t make Panda angry, period! The Panda never gets happy. The best you can do is keep its mood neutral. Otherwise, it will take you down to the furthest bottom.
2. Quality should be given the higher importance over quantity - Google update in panda
So you aim to have a million posts on your website or blog, right? And you think Panda will be happy with this? You better realise one thing already. The bigger your website, the easier it is to spot. And if it is full of garbage, it will stink as the Panda passes by and you’ll realise sooner than later that that’s not what you were looking forward to doing.
The count of posts of your website is very likely to attract attention. Simply because humanity tends to focus on numbers other than what the number contain as time progresses and as the website grows. This is why Panda has taken down some huge websites without much effort after all, it’s just an algorithm. You won’t bribe it or something. You just have to satisfy what it needs.
This is not to imply that huge number will most likely take you down. No. Wikipedia wouldn’t be alive to this point. In fact, huge numbers attract attention and would most likely raise your ranking… If yours are the good kind of huge numbers. What I mean starts from the first point I made. When your website is huge and contains just a huge chunk of junk, you’ll be penalized for this and you’ll cry over your wasted hard work.
Instead of just high numbers that contain little quality of what is expected of such an established brand as yours, focus on the quality of what you have on your website. Is it worth the quality of work attached to your brand? Does it contain that kind of content people expect from it? Are you competitive enough in terms of how much useful information people find on your website? Ask yourself that before heading forth to posting pure junk that won’t help the people who give you the traffic that you make a living from.
3. Do not pay too much attention to word count
The word count myth arose from a time when article shares was higher with word count on social media. Not to disregard this fact, people do not share articles because they are 3000 words long. That’s not their reason. Actually, a 500-word article could do better than a 5000 word article because people share the long articles for genuine reasons.
Because any further explanation, keep this at the back of your mind. The long articles are shared because they give enough space for the author to put down all points and arguments without leaving anything out. But mostly, this has to be so because people tend to write on sensitive topics from a broad point of view. Other than that, word count isn’t the point.
The major thing with sharing of articles come from how well the author is able to put his points within the smallest count of words, with some carefully chosen wording and clear elaboration. The point here is simply to get the message across and make the reader feel that the message was delivered home.
However, this is highly misunderstood and it seems people try to have some sort of a fix word count range. This should never be the case and it is easy for Panda to find out you’re doing this. And if Panda does, trust me, you’ll lose the game. All you should aim at is to have your users understand what you mean in the smallest count of words. Simply so. Because humans are just humans and get bored. This is why a larger word count is sometimes more dangerous than a smaller one.
To finish this up, you need to know why smaller articles are not shared. It is simply because the smaller articles usually have the arguments badly phrased out and tend leave the user hanging, as if the full information was not delivered. My personal advice to you is, if you are able to squeeze the idea in a few words, say a thousand with very clear explanations, then you are good to go. But do not get me wrong. In order to achieve this, avoid topics that are too broad. Instead, break such topics into different posts, then make sure the other posts appear in the “Related posts” section to ensure that the user gets everything he/she was looking for.
4. Write content yourself - Google update in panda
Not that Panda will somehow detect that you are not doing the writing yourself, but notice that you are the one with the best catch of the idea of what your blog or website is all about. You are the one to show everyone else the kind of style to be used in writing and just anything the need to know before getting down to working for you.
It’s not some sort of a requirement that you write for yourself at the beginning, but it is a good idea just to make the other writers get the hang of it.
5. Buy quality content and pay for it - Google update in panda
When you ask freelancers or normal employees to work for you, demand some quality from them. Let them know the grade of work you expect from them and be strict on this as it is the actual thing you require. Sure you are not looking for some content that will just result in your website getting penalised after spending so much on it.
And when you demand quality, know that goes hand in hand with the quality of pay the people receive. You do not expect the people to provide the best quality work when you give some of the poorest prices. Not that people just want money, but it is a good way of appreciating their decision to provide the best for you. By paying them, you are simply compensating for their time and energy spent on your website.
6. Let users post content themselves
As you might have seen earlier, Panda and basically the whole of SEO likes it when users are the ones who generate the content on your website. And the reason is simple: they are the ones who will benefit from such content. A website like stackoverflow.com is just one example of a site that relies completely on user generated content and no day will Panda ever think of taking it down, because the users themselves are the ones who attach importance to the website other than the publishers. If your site has the capacity to provide such, let the users speak their minds somehow.
One last word for Google update in panda …
The Panda still roams the internet on irregular intervals. If I were you, this would scare me and I would be careful with what I post on my website. I would have some kind of a Panda eligibility test for each and every post that finds its way to my website before actually posting it because Panda can hit any site, anywhere at any time. Do not let Panda eat away all your hard work because of simple carelessness.
