With giving a pause to all the rumors fired since last few months, Google on 20th May 2014 officially announced the roll out of yet another Panda update termed as Panda 4.0. Surprisingly Matt Cutts personally tweeted about its confirmation in the backdrop of the fact that very recently Google officially stated that it would not be making any further confirmation about the Panda Updates as it has integrated it with the daily algorithm. Â With Google claiming to affect as much as 7.5% English queries it would be interesting to see the extent to which the websites are affected by this update.
Coming back to Panda Update, although much has been written about it, still lets turn the pages of History in order to acquaint ourselves more about it and better understand this current Panda update.
Way back in February 2011, Google launched its first panda update in the midst of huge speculation about its deteriorating SERP quality with the message that it is aimed at removing the scraper contents, copyright infringers, link farms, duplicate content, thin content and other artificial spams targeted for the sole purpose of achieving the ranks. Â And thus began the quest for quality content which even today haunts many in order to boost the performance of their website.
Talking about the architecture of this algorithm, it was designed by one of the engineers of Google Navneet Panda, for the purpose of removing the widespread spam on Google.
One of the core concepts behind the working of Panda algorithm is the fact that based on the analysis of the data obtained from mails, pictures, textual contents on the website, the authenticity of the website can be determined. Using the data from the above mentioned factors Google claims that its bot can easily find out the genuine websites from among the spammy websites. Although just like all other algorithms it has its own flaws but on the whole it is one of the most advanced algorithms developed by Google in order to fight the spam.
After digging deeper into how does Panda Algorithm really works. We came across some of the interesting facts. Panda algorithm might be using a lot of factors in determining the quality of data on your website. However before I explain these factors I would like to comment that Please Stop Using The Word Å“My site is penalizedÂ, the reason being now instead of penalizing your site Google has devised a much better approach. With each update including the recent one Google enhances the quality of SERP, which in turn means that if you had a score of 5/10 and you were ranking on 8th position on SERP, now because of the inferior quality of your content, or because of a much higher quality SERP you might have been assigned a new score of 2/10 and you might be ranking on the third page of the SERP. In case if you still do not do anything you might be pushed further down the SERP. This is among one of the most important factors because of which you all these days find lots of news websites ranking for your queries on SERP.
Coming to the possible factors which Panda might be using in assessing the quality of your page, I have mentioned them below.
Independent links vs Procurred Links.
Ok so you have a website, in fact a popular website with lots of branded clients in your kitty, and to make sure you benefit from them you have placed a link in their footer pointing to your domain, I would suggest you to kindly discontinue this practice. The reason being the latest panda update and the patent for Panda clearly states that it will especially be looking for these kinds of link building techniques and even if you have unique links from a 1000 unique branded sites Google may not consider it in ranking you on its SERP.
What can help you now is the independent linking. Links which you have earned, for instance how about if you deliver good services when it comes to web designing and Forbes mention you on their site for the good work with a link to your site. That link will worth a million links which you often plan to procure through unethical means.Groups Rather Than Individuality
Recently Google has changed the perception about the way it looks at the website. Now instead of considering your website as a single entity, your site might be considered as a part of group, something similar to the concept of co-citation. The end result is if you want to rank within this group make sure that you have proper links and content clearly stating the nature of your site.
Queries Do Matter
Google has a very sharp eye on the results which appears for the queries used by the user. Now here again Google has divided the entire set of queries into two sub groups. The web pages appearing for a specific query on the SERP. And the frequency of these pages for the relative queries.
The reason for this criterion is based on the fact you can easily make each of your webpage a perfect landing page and trap the customers even when you do not provide the specific services however the latest Panda update will make sure that you pay the price if you have the slightest of the intentions of doing so. The moral of the story here are as follows
What does Google Panda 4.0 want?
Dont be a writing expert when it comes to content marketing but do make sure that you create a quality content for your customers, stop making them fool.
When it comes to optimizing your website instead of optimizing each of your webpage for a unique keyword, a better approach would be if you go for a selected number of keywords and develop your entire website around these limited keywords. Remember its always good to be Master Of One Game than to be the Jack Of All Trades.
Go for a crystal clear content nothing which gives a sense of promotion or marketing. Make your customer aware about your services instead of screaming at them to buy your service, if you are the best they will be more than happy to get engaged with you.
Above all stop seeking artificial likes, purchased followers, enlightening yourself with link farms, fooling your customers with thin content and playing tricks with site wide links.
Checkout our latest infograph on Panda update and see for the top losers of this update here - Panda 4.0 - Get to know about it visuallyÂ
