Google Panda is a series of search engine algorithm updates created to identify and weed up low-quality websites with duplicate content. The purpose is to find and penalise websites with poor content and, as a result, bring higher quality websites at the top of search results.
Panda 4.0 is made more interesting because it was released back-to-back with Google’s Payday Loan 2.0 update which targets “very spammy queries”.
While it’s still too early to tell how exactly these two updates are impacting sites, one thing is clear – websites everywhere are suffering.
Ask.com, Examiner.com, Health.com are just a few of the biggest losers of the Panda 4.0 update. Not to mention eBay which is at the top of the list, losing 80% of its organic rankings!
But that doesn’t mean that only big, hugely popular sites are or will be affected. Big or small, Panda 4.0 can ruin your business.However, since Panda 4.0 is still in its rollout stand, it’s too early to tell how websites will be affected. Some small site business owners have already reported a drop in their rankings.
What should small businesses do?
The best thing you can do is to keep a close eye on your web analytics and see if you notice any changes like major dips and spikes in organic traffic. Even if in the following weeks you will notice no change, you should still do your best to prevent your site from being affected by future Google updates.
Here’s four important things to focus on:
- High quality content. If you’re duplicating content throughout your site, now’s the time to stop if you don’t want to be penalised. Clean up your site and make creating unique and useful content your no. 1 goal.
- Readability. Stuffing your content with keywords is soooo two years ago. Adding a keyword to every sentence, title tag, header tag and description isn’t going to cut it these days. Instead, start focusing on quality content and readability.
- Usability. Make sure that your site loads quickly and is easy to navigate through, and that there are no broken links or errors as these things can affect your rankings.
- Engagement. Build a site that people want to visit, link to, return to, share etc. In other words, build a site that people love.
No matter what webmasters uncover in the next few days while they’re evaluating and analysing what exactly has caused some sites to rise and others to fall in Google’s search results, one thing is clear: quality content has never been as important as it is now.
Full article from 123 Reg available at http://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/search-engines/google-panda-4-0-traffic/?_$ja=tsid:54697%7Ccgn:June-DESF-14
