Google Panda update May 2012 - what you need to know

The recent update to the Google search algorithm has had a profound affect on many websites. Webmasters are having to re-think their SEO strategies mainly due to the penalties now being applied to pages giving outbound links with the purpose of manipulating page rank.

What is PANDA

Panda is now using human reviewers to rate some sites, especially where a pattern of manipulation is evident. So, websites optimised for bots are now being punished.

Panda intends to improve the quality of search results by removing low quality, entries from the early pages. Content mills and sites with useless information that had been artificially pushed to the top results pages are now being hit pretty hard.

If your site has been affected here are some tips to help. Removing low quality content will help you deal with Panda but here are some steps that are especially useful.

Duplicate Anchor Text and Links from Article Directories/Low Quality Sites

Backlinks are very important but as you know it is quality backlinks that matter. Panda now penalises sites with numerous backlinks from article directories or other content sites because these sites are deemed low quality. Additionally, when the anchor text of your backlinks is always the same this now triggers suspicions that this link hasn't been created naturally. You now have to use multiple variations of your keywords

No Multiple Pages with the Same Keyword

The reason why content mills were slapped the hardest by Panda is that they had many pages with the same keyword.

If your site has multiple pages that target the same keyword, get rid of them because this is hurting you.

Too Many Outbound Links with Keywords

Too many outbound links are bad but when they are with keywords as anchor text, this is even worse. The assumption is that these links are the result of a link exchange – i.e. they aren't natural. Additionally limit keyword stuffed anchors as much as you can.

Low content 1-2 Paragraphs pages

The rules have changed and pages with 1-2 paragraphs of text can damage your rankings. Add more text or remove the pages – these are the two options you have.

Panda Likes New Content

News and recent updates have always been loved by search engines but with Panda this is even more important. About 35% of searches will be affected because preference will be given to current pages. Your site doesn’t have to be a news machine but if you update your content frequently this will help.

Duplicate Content

Panda now seems to penalise duplicate content. If you are using spun articles, this can seriously hurt you. Try to make your textual content as original as possible. If you have multiple sites use a content checker tool to analyse the percentage of similarity. A high score means low rankings, we have noticed this is being penalised by the index page of sites being removed from the SERP’s

Duplicate Templates

Duplicate content applies to everything on a page. If you are using the same template for all your pages, i.e. the same blocks of text (and links) you reuse on each page. Keep only the most important ones.

Poor Internal Linking Structure

Panda likes a clean navigation structure - this now gains even more weight. Check your internal links and streamline your navigation

Clean Your Site

You may have some good content pages but too many sub-standard ones and your whole site can suffer. The only solution here is to fix or remove the low quality ones and wait for the crawlers to come.

Affiliate Links and Ads

Numerous outbound links is bad but too many affiliate links on a page is even worse. You need to cut the number of affiliate links on a page. Preferably make them nofollow, if possible. The number of ads on a page also plays role with Panda and the rule is: the fewer, the better.

If you’ve been on the receiving end, clean your site and make it Panda-compliant.
It’s the only way to recover your positioning

Adwords Billing errors using Internet Explorer

Do ever wish they could just leave something well alone that works well?

Personally I never had any problems with IE8 and liked the interface. IE9 in contrast I find a pain in the backside, and so it seems do Google who can't even be bothered make their billing tab in Google Adwords compliant.

If you are having problems setting up a Google Adwords account, especially Google Adwords billing not working - install Google Chrome and you'll find it works: https://www.google.com/chrome

Our personal stats show that around 60% of people use IE as their preferred browser, whilst only 19% favour Chrome. So this could be viewed as an attempt to increase the market share of Google Chrome.

Whilst this is a bit arrogant, and must lose Google revenue as a new subscriber cannot complete account set up if they're using IE, some of the blame lies with IE as there are many other functions with errors - such as wordpress navigation systems that do not work in IE9.

Other problems you might encounter are:

Google webmaster tools slow loading scripts in IE, in fact they don't load, you have to stop them - but this works perfectly well in Chrome.

Chrome as a browser

I am not a great fan of Chrome as a browser, there are many popular functions that do not perform well, such as Java script slideshows.There is a lack of effort to make it compatible with anything other than a very modern site using CSS. Google has the biggest shop window in the world, and if only 19% market share has been achieved (according to our stats - 384 website's data) it can't just be me that doesn't like it. However it's becoming more appealing, as IE9 shoots itself in the foot!!

As web designers we always ensure our clients site's are compatible with the major browsers such as IE, Chrome, Mozilla etc...

Algorithm change may be open to abuse

Google have recently expanded its search result blocking feature, allowing users to block sites from their search results that they may not find useful or are not satisfied with.

"You can manage your list of blocked sites from the dashboard, which can be found in your Search Settings. You’ll see when you blocked a site and the reason that you did so, and you can unblock sites if you choose," search quality engineer Johannes Henkel said in a blog post.

Google said this should help users all over the world to take control of their search experience and personalise their results in this manner.
Npwebservices comment . . . . . .

Manipulation threat

"Google also said it has started incorporating data about sites people have blocked into its general search ranking algorithms to help users find more high quality sites.

This strategy is wide open to manipulation as businesses can negatively affect their competing listings with moderate know how and a range of IP addresses. No doubt you can already recruit resources in the far east that will offer services to damage competing listings.

Let’s hope the algorithm change does not place too much emphasis and negative point allocation to this data"

Google 'Panda' changes search results – are you affected?

The Panda update has downgraded some UK tech sites - and Microsoft's Ciao plus voucher sites and 'content farms'.

The update is intended to demote sites which scrape content from other sites, increasing the importance of unique relevant content on your site. Good web designers offering SEO services will be aware of this.

Google made the change in the US at the end of February, and a number of original content sites were hit then, including the British Medical Journal. Now it has rolled it out more broadly.

Large-scale changes to Google's algorithm was noticed almost immediately. If you site is not appearing on the first two pages for search terms with significant traffic you’re website will attract less than 1% of searches, as 99% of searchers don’t go beyond page 2.

If your business relies of Google traffic you have to be aware of the consequences of algorithm change. For professional advice visit the website advertising agency

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