Google Panda update – a new SEO Outlook

Since from last couple of months, Google Panda has been the most widely talked and shared issue among the webmasters and SEO professionals. Popular SEO forums and blogs are junked with threads and posts regarding Google Panda update and its effects on SEO.

Being a renowned SEO services provider, we at Websys have been answering our clients and fellow webmasters regarding our experiences. Since form the very first day we have been keeping an eagle’s eye on every single project of ours and finally decided to share our experiences on the same with you all. So let’s start from the beginning.

 

Evolution history of Google Panda:

As we all know that Google has always been trying to refine their search result so as to portray itself as an ultimate search engine, which is far away from the actual definition.

“The ultimate search engine would basically understand everything in the world, and it would always give you the right thing. And we’re a long, long ways from that.”
– Larry Page

 

In the course of narrowing the gap between truth and reality, Google keeps on updating their algorithm so as to serve the best possible search result. Apart from indexing, Google had already incorporated nearly 200 metrics for evaluating a websites before it appears in the search result but, the gap is still there. Therefore Google has rolled out a new way by increasing the scalability of their Machine Learning Algorithm. By using this algorithm, it can be assumed that it will now be capable of categorizing websites more efficiently which will be based on empirical data regarding user statistics and website performance.

 

What Google Panda really is?

It’s the machine learning algorithm that we were talking about which has been recently incorporated with Google ranking algorithm. The effect can be estimated by its impact which already influenced around 11.8% of search queries (as reported in Google official blog).

What Google can do based on this algorithm is segregating a bunch of sites that people like more from those sites that people like less. But the question is what these likes are all about and what the actual metrics are. An exact answer to this question can only be delivered by Google search engineers or the one who originally developed Panda (Navneet Panda).

What we can do is prediction based on Panda after effect statistics.

 

Among the gainers we have domains like eHow, mashable, YouTube, eBay along with popular social networking sites and blogging services. The page view, stick time and link share including recommendation of such websites are really impressive.

On the other hand, among losers we have popular article sites like ezinearticles, associatedcontent, hubpages along with various technology blogs and sites that either create content based on search demand or sites that recycle content from other sources. Few of these sites have good stick time but the page view, link share and recommendations are not as good as that of gainers.

(For more details you can check out by yourself in Google Trends for websites)

 

Conclusion:

Based on our analysis it can be concluded that we need to look out few things before marketing our website.

1. Make your content as unique as possible. Portray as if you are presenting something relevant but unique information.

Websites which are dealing with products can include users review which will in turn make their content unique one. Also make sure that you can encourage visitors and buyers to review your product.

2. Make your website design and navigations user friendly, such that it can influence user’s engagement.
3. Allow easy sharing of your website links through social media.

We will recommend sharing of your website url through facebook share rather than poking through your facebook page.

4. Avoid elements like unwanted ads and pop-ups that look annoying for users.
5. Set up any analytics tool to monitor your users stick time and page view specially those who are arriving through your niche keyword search results.

Lastly we would like to remind you that website should primarily be meant for the users not for ads, revenues or search engine exposure. So just follow Google Webmasters Guidelines and make your website a real user friendly one.

 

Valuable References:

1. Google Webmastercentral Blog

2. Google Official blog

3. Sistrix

4. Google Trends for website