Google Panda has been updated several times over period of time to remove low quality sites from search engine and improve the quality of search results. For many webmasters, Google Panda updates still remain a labyrinth and many good websites lost search engine rankings due to Panda penalty.
Google Panda 4.0 officially made its debut with Matt Cutt’s tweet about the Panda 4.0 update with the purpose of connecting users with better sites. An important feature of Google Panda is that it is a domain level penalty. Now, what does this mean? It implies that if earlier you have had low quality content, content was penalized, but now, low quality content results in penalty of your complete domain.
Which websites Google Panda 4.0 update is going to effect:
- Websites with low quality content (too short, not well researched)
- Websites with useless pages indexed in Google
- Too many advertisements
- Duplicate content
- Poor grammar
- Black hat SEO
- Slow site loading time
- Broken links
How to get to know that your site has been affected?
The recent Panda 4.0 update rolled out on 21st May, 2014 and to see its impact on your rankings, go to your analytics and see the graphics while comparing the results of 10 days. If you notice a significant rise or drop in traffic, this implies that your website is getting the hiccups of the latest Google Panda update.
Big Losers (Searchmetrics) include:
- Ask.com
- Ebay.com
- Biography.com
- Retailmenot.com
- Starpulse.com
- History.com
- Isitdownrightnow.com
- Aceshowbiz.com
- Examiner.com
- Yellowpages.com
- Yourtango.com
- Dealcatcher.com
- Livescience.com
- Webopedia.com
- Xmarks.com
- Simplyrecipes.com
- Siteslike.com
- Digitaltrends.com
- Health.com
- Spoonful.com
Big Winners include:
- Glassdoor.com
- Emedicinehealth.com
- Medterms.com
- Yourdictionary.com
- Shopstyle.com
- Zimbio.com
- Myrecipes.com
- Couponcabin.com
- Buzzfeed.com
- Consumeraffairs.com
- WordPress.com
- Thinkexist.com
- Onhealth.com
- Alternativeto.net
- Whosdatedwho.com
- Reverso.net
- Wikimedia.org
- Dogtime.com
- Findthebest.com
- Eatingwell.com
How to Recover From Google Panda Effect:
Include quality and original content
You should write original and genuine content with right targeted keywords. The post should be optimized for certain keywords as a quality post written without any targeted keywords will not come high in search engine results. Google takes quality very seriously.
Remove low quality content
If in the past, you might have posts that are not well-written, very short or may not have targeted keywords. It is the time to work on removing low quality posts and convert them to high quality articles. The panda 4.0 update has been made to remove spammy content from the search engines. Google is working towards eliminating results that are not relevant or not useful. Even if you are not yet hit by Panda effect, you should always work to make your blog better and offer quality information to the readers.
Eliminate duplicate content
Duplicate content is surely going to have effect on your search engine rankings. Work on every detail of your site structure and make sure that you are not providing any duplicate content to the readers.
Work on white-hat SEO techniques
SEO is an integral part of your online campaigns and if you are serious about your business, it is a must-have. You should start with learning SEO focusing on areas like
- Keyword research
- Keyword optimization
- On site SEO
- Off site SEO
- Social media promotion
Your Thoughts About Panda
What do you think about this Panda 4.0 update? Have your site been affected by this update? What recovery methods are you taking? Let us know in the comments below.
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