Google Algorithm Update: Panda

Over the last few months, Google have been rolling out a new algorithm update (code named Panda). The purpose of this update, according to Google "is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.".

This is in-line with Google's quest to provide high quality, authoratitive content to the user. Rankings of sites which are deemed low quality or thin content will be lowered and higher quality sites will appear higher in the search results.

Almost immediately after launching the Panda update, content farms and other websites with poorly written, keyword-stuffed information have lost rank or disappeared completely from Google search results.

The way to avoid being demoted on the Google rankings because of this and other updates is to write strong content. Google have put up a number of questions that you should ask yourself to determine whether your content is Panda-proof.

These questions include:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?

As you can see, Google are looking to ensure that the information presented to the user is factually correct, grammatically correct and carefully put together.

These guidelines are useful to bear in mind when writing your next article. Just throwing together a thin article with a few kewords scattered into it doesn't work anymore.