24 May 2012

Google Panda Updates in 2012

Original Blog Posted: 24 May 2012

Google’s Panda Updates in 2012 are Changing the Game for SEO
Internet Marketing,Search Engine Optimization 2 May 2012

If you own a commercial website in a competitive market online, it is possible that you noticed some alarming shifts in your site’s search engine ranking position around the end of February and into March of 2012. Similarly, if you are a search marketer, you likely noticed some significant movement in the rankings for some of the sites your manage. The following is a description of some of the major updates that were made to Google’s algorithm over the past 13 months that will likely have a lasting impact on SEO for the foreseeable future.

February 2011: Google Launches Panda Algorithm Update
Since February 2011, when Google first introduced it’s new Panda search results ranking algorithm, there have been some very dramatic shifts in emphasis towards “higher quality sites”. For instance, many news sites and social networking sites have been seeing a higher surge in ranking positions over more static sites that contain lots of advertising. With the initial Panda update in last year, the change reportedly affected around 12% of all search results.

November 2011: Fresh Content is Even More Important
Following from this initial release, over the past year Google has been adding minor updates to help further refine the quality of search results, however another major update came in November 2011. It was announced that an algorithm change that rewards freshness would impact up to 35% of all search queries. This change would make having a blog on your site for instance be that much more valuable going forward (as if it wasn’t already?).

January 2012: Update Focuses on the Quality Inbound Links.
As inbound links to your website have historically been one of the strongest indications of site relevance and popularity, the algorithm is now better at scrutinizing between real authentic links and artificial links.

February 2012: Google Rewards Better Onsite Quality Factors
Higher Emphasis Toward On-page Factors: Google is now measuring how users interact with websites to help score the relevance of a site with regards to search queries. How long a user stays on a page, whether they bounce off right away and even how fast the page load time is are now all more heavily weighted factors. This is ultimately a great thing in my opinion because it will mean that sites that want to place high will now have to produce better, more relevant content in a way that is more attractive and captures the interest of search visitors. Google also introduced penalties for sites that are crowded with paid links and display ads above the first half of the page. Sites like this will have experienced a bit of a downgrade according to this update.

April 3rd, 2012: Anchor Text Scoring
Google announced another change in April that will influence how it scores and evaluates anchor text links. This is a significant shift as far as search marketers are concerned, as anchor text links have traditionally been a very strong component for getting a site to rank well for a particular keyword. A more in depth description of this update can be found here.
So there you have a review of some of the major updates that have affected search since the initial roll out of Panda. In essence, Google has made some significant changes that will ultimately deliver a better list of quality sites and make for a better user experience. The walk away is that business owners and search engine optimizers will need to do a better job at getting their sites to conform to these new standards. Changes like these are positive for everyone in my opinion, because they help encourage a better standard of quality, while helping to reinvigorate the approach to building and optimizing websites. True, it can sometimes be traumatic when a dramatic shift occurs, but it is everyone’s job to stay on top of these updates and to plan accordingly.