Up until now, Google’s “Panda” was just a periodic update by the search giant to ferret out sites engaging in spam and other nefarious activities. Over the last couple of years, many websites have lost rankings due to the update.
In a Q&A session at the SMX conference earlier this week, Google spam chief Matt Cutts was asked when the next Panda update would occur.
He answered that it would occur either today (March 15), or Monday March 18th at the latest.
A brief recap of Panda
Following an update in late 2009 aimed at improving its indexing process, Google obtained lots of content to display in their search results. Some of this content was really good, some not so good. In commenting about the events of 2010 and 2011 leading up to Panda, Cutts explained that many sites were taking a minimalist approach to content, meaning they were making only token efforts to avoid being labeled “spam.”
To address this issue and provide better search results for their users, Google unveiled the Panda update in February 2011. One thing became clear during all of this – Google was using more human reviewers to determine if a site is “trustworthy.”
Sites who simply rehashed content found elsewhere, or who otherwise had “low-quality” content, were suddenly being knocked lower in the rankings. Google would run this update every month or so – with the last one occurring on January 22nd that affected 1.2% of English-based searches.
Going forward, Google will be including the Panda “parameters” in its real-time algorithm.
“Rather than having some huge change that happens on a given day, you’re more likely in the future to see Panda deployed gradually as we’re rebuilding the index, so you’re less likely to see these large scale sorts of changes,” explained Cutts last week at SMX West.
Google also working to revise its “Penguin” update
Besides the content based Panda update, Cutts also indicated Google would be going after spammers more aggressively through a revised “Penguin” update. You might remember Penguin from last year – it targeted sites considered to be “over-optimized.” Examples include:
- Questionable linking practices
- Overuse of exact-match domains
- Aggressive use of exact-match anchor text
- Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links
- And more…
Explaining the new Penguin update at SMX West, Cutts says the update will be the most significant one for 2013. He says the anti-spam team at Google also plans to target more link networks this year. While Cutts was fairly forthright about their plans, he didn’t provide a timeline of when the new Penguin update would hit.
With that said, it’s clear that we’ll likely see some pretty significant activity on the Google front in the next few months. Many sites and merchants on Google will undoubtedly be negatively affected.
How do I avoid being caught in the Google penalty box?
From what we can tell, Google’s primary goal is to provide useful results to their users. These search results must provide valuable information to readers.
Therefore, you should ensure that content you’re developing is unique, and provides value to your site visitors. You should also follow good linking practices to ensure you’re not snared by the new Penguin update when it comes out.
Following tips on linking and content found here at SEO-e is perhaps the best thing you can do to avoid being penalized. Check out some of the links below of prior posts exploring these best practices.
And please browse around our blog for more insights into what Google looks for, and how they penalize sites that do not meet their strict standards.
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