Google Panda 101: What You Need to Know

For the last few months, the web has been abuzz with the changes to the search engine rankings brought on by the Google Panda algorithm update.  So if you haven’t yet heard about this important topic, it’s time to get educated, as these changes have some pretty dramatic implications for website building best practices going forward.

For starters, a little background information…  The first thing you need to know about Google Panda isn’t about the algorithm changes themselves – it’s about Google’s overall goals.  Google’s aim is to provide the best possible search engine results for its visitors, because the better they are, the more people will continue to use Google.  And the more people that use Google for their search needs, the more money Google makes through advertising revenue.

So Google is understandably frustrated by websites that game their way into the Top 10 search engine results pages (whether through SEO or more nefarious black hat methods), as these sites undermine Google’s efforts to filter the results in its index by their true quality.  It’s for this reason that the search giant is constantly updating its algorithms in order to weed out imposters and ensure that legitimately valuable results are displayed.

Google Panda is just one of these algorithm updates, but it’s one of the most wide-reaching updates to occur in the past years.  Initially, the update was titled the “Farmer’s Update” due to its disproportionate impact on “content farm” sites – repositories of user-contributed content that typically lacked substance or depth (the name was later changed to reflect the name of Biswanath Panda, the Google engineer who led the project).

According to a post-Panda rollout analysis by web data aggregator Sistrix, some of the sites to take the largest hit in rankings were popular sites like Hubpages, Associated Content and EzineArticles.

So far, there have been four separate Google Panda rollouts since the initial debut on February 24^th, 2011, with each successive update occurring roughly 4-8 weeks apart.  The types of sites that have been targeted by this algorithm change (estimated at 12.5-14% of all keyword-based search queries in Google’s index) include:

• Sites with a high volume of low quality information (for example, the content farm sites discussed earlier)
• Sites with a high percentage of duplicate content (affecting scraper sites and ecommerce sites that have repetitive information on each product landing page)
• Thin sites that provide little substantive content and infrequent updates

Sites that meet these criteria and run afoul of the new Panda updates typically experienced “slaps” and saw a decrease in their traffic and rankings.  However, it’s worth noting that the application of the Panda penalty wasn’t even – high-quality sites were also slapped, while plenty of low-quality sites skated by and continue to maintain their top rankings.

This is because, despite having it as a primary goal, Google hasn’t yet been able to define – numerically – what constitutes a “good” page.  In order to sort the good results from the bad, Google must apply a mathematical algorithm to its calculations, even though it’s inherently difficult to define site quality in a quantitative way.

Not that Google isn’t working on it…  To create the Panda algorithm changes, Google engineers polled a group of survey participants on the quality of sample sites using a framework of questions.  Amit Singhal, a top Google analyst, explained the process in an interview with Wired magazine:

“We used our standard evaluation system that we’ve developed, where we basically sent out documents to outside testers. Then we asked the raters questions like: “Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit card? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids?”

Using the participants’ responses to these questions, Google’s number crunchers were able to apply a set of formulas to their index which roughly mimics what a person’s “gut reaction” might be to a given site’s quality.  To further clarify what types of questions Google asked its readers to evaluate sites on, Singhal later released a list of 23 questions that every webmaster should ask before publishing new content.

A few of these questions are listed below for your reference:

1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?
2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

So although we can’t model the exact factors used in the Panda update, we can use these 23 questions as a clue, not just to what the Google engineers were thinking when they launched this most recent algorithm change, but also what types of content they’re looking to reward in the future.  Keep in mind – just because Google didn’t succeed in wiping out poor quality, spammy content with this latest update doesn’t mean that they’ve given up.  It’s practically a sure thing that we’ll see future updates and algorithm changes that attempt to bring the natural SERPs more in alignment with these questions.

This means that smart website owners are currently optimizing their content to meet Google’s new quality standards, even if they weren’t slapped by the Panda update.  Don’t wait for future updates to take down your site, instead consider the following tips on how to manage your site’s content going forward:

• Post original, unique, helpful content. Keep in mind that the goal of the existing Panda updates and any future rollouts that occur is to ensure that only high-quality results appear in response to users’ search queries.  By providing this type of content in the first place, you’ll give your site the best chance of staying on Google’s good side.
• Eliminate duplicate content. Even if 95% of your site is high-quality information, having a few pages with duplicate content can be enough to trigger a Panda penalty.  If you already have a website, take a few minutes to analyze your content and improve anything that could be considered low-quality by Google.  If you don’t, make sure that all of the content on your site is unique and informative before you launch.
• Position yourself as an authority. One of the biggest keywords of the Google Panda update was “authority”, as in, “Does this content appear to have been created by an authority?”  And while you don’t need to have a PhD in your chosen niche to be successful, it’s worth investing some time now in clarifying what makes you qualified to share the information on your site.

It’s also a good idea to run your proposed web content through the full list of 23 questions listed above before publishing it.  Although following these guidelines isn’t guaranteed to prevent your site from falling victim to future updates or to help it rank better (which is why it’s still important to follow basic SEO best practices), it’s important to focus on publishing the best quality content you can in order to protect your site from a Panda penalty.

Image: kevin dooley