Google’s Panda Updates: 2.3 Quality Content

Google’s entire series of Panda updates involves a variety of changes to Google’s algorithm with one single focus:  to improve the rankings of quality content, while also reducing the rankings of lower-quality content.

After all the dramatic changes caused by Google’s many Panda updates, you could really say that Panda is almost an entirely new platform for ranking content.  The word “update” implies a small change here and there, but there’s nothing small about Panda.

This particular update is not a huge one, but the effect of this update and all the other Panda updates together changes many rankings in Google.

On July 23, 2011, Google rolled out its Panda 2.3 update.  Officially, Google did not make a huge deal out of Panda 2.3.  When asked, a spokesperson simply noted this update represented Google’s continuing commitment to high-quality content and was one of about 500 updates Google implements during each year.

What were the real effects of Panda 2.3?

As is the case with many of Google’s updates, Google didn’t say very much publicly about this update.  But, webmasters and SEO experts intently monitor every little change, and they certainly found some additional changes in this case.

User “Mr.Savage”, on this Webmaster World thread, said that he was very angry with the update.  By favoring quality, popular, and deep content, he claimed, Google was favoring all the big-time blogs and authority sites.  Some of his sites, which were smaller in terms of their online impact, lost significant rankings and traffic.

And, he wasn’t the only one affected.  Many other users noted a dramatic drop in traffic to their websites.  Some noticed between a 50-70% drop in website traffic.

Other users also noticed similar trends in what appears to be Google again favoring large websites.  Smaller niche specialty shops were not able to rank well for specific terms, even though their content and products may have fit those niche terms better than a larger online store.

To some users, it seems as though those gigantic websites with multiple staff members and regular updates benefited more from Panda 2.3 than the “little guys.”

What does Panda 2.3 mean for your website?

Ultimately, clearly you have to realize you have no control over what Google does when it makes an update.  While many users complained the “big boys” weren’t impacted by this update, while many of the “little guys” were, it’s also true not all the little guys were hurt.
The best you can do to maintain high Google rankings is:

• Create quality content
• Make regular updates to your site
• Have many in-bound links to your site
• Keep doing all of these on a regular basis

By following these general principles, you’ll put yourself in the best position to rank highly in Google.  If you don’t have the time to do these things, then you may benefit from the help of a professional.

We wish good luck to your site and its rankings, and be sure to let us know if we can help in any way.

With Panda 2.2, Google continued its yearlong assault on low-quality and scraped content.  If you recall from our other Panda Updates posts, the original Panda targeted content farms, Panda 2.0 aimed at helping to return the highest-quality result for your search, while Panda 2.1 also targeted quality, but only affected just a small handful of websites.

Interestingly, Google’s algorithm is so complex that even Google doesn’t quite know what is going on, and neither do its engineers have control over the exact results of any algorithm changes. In fact, some Google engineers have been quoted saying that they are unaware of about 25% of Google’s searches at any given time.

On June 21, 2011, Panda 2.2 was released.  Google’s Matt Cutts explained that, officially, the purpose of Panda 2.2 was to improve scraper detection.

“Scraping” refers to copying information from other sites and placing it on your own, without giving credit to the original author.  You can do this easily yourself by using the copy-and-paste function on your computer, but there are also automated tools that do this.  This has long been a major problem on the ‘net.

What is “unique” content and how can I avoid Google penalties related to content?

You’ve asked a great question!  No one really knows how to define exactly what “unique” means.  SEO experts believe that if you created an original article and then rewrote a new one, somewhere between 50-70% of the words in the new one must not appear in the original.

Don’t think that we’re teaching you how to copy someone else’s content and not get caught!  Rewriting your own content for distribution to other sites can be an effective part of an SEO strategy.

When marketing articles, you may distribute the same article to a handful of targeted sites, or you may distribute it to hundreds of sites.  Some sites may want what we just discussed to be an “original” article.  So, you may rewrite the same ideas in the article, but use mostly different words than before.

Panda 2.2 Isn’t What Would be Considered an “Algorithm Change”

While Panda 2.2 did no doubt affect a good handful of websites, Danny Sullivan, of Search Engine Land, explains Panda 2.2 was a manual update.  Instead of being a permanent change, each Panda Update is more like a computer program run manually by one of Google’s engineers.

The first four Panda updates (the original Panda, Panda 2.0, Panda 2.1, and Panda 2.2) each had about 6 week or so between each update.  If you were affected by the original Panda, and then made changes to follow Panda’s guidelines, your rankings still wouldn’t be updated until the release of Panda 2.0.

In this sense, Panda has been more of a manual update.  “Algorithm changes” would be changes implemented at one point in time, but then carried out by Google automatically on an ongoing basis.  An example would be Google’s Mayday Update (implemented in 2010), which focused on increasing the quality of long-tail keyword search rankings.

It’s Easy to Avoid Being Hurt by Panda

If you’ve been reading our entire series on Google Panda, you’ve probably realized that avoiding Panda’s ranking penalties is pretty easy.  All you need to do is:

• Write well on a certain topic
• Use correct grammar and spelling
• Write an original article

If you follow those guidelines, you’ll easily avoid any of Panda’s penalties.

In our previous Google Updates posts, we’ve taken a look at some pretty major changes, most of which were focused on increasing the quality of content and the result returned in the search engine rankings.

The original Panda update focused on “content farm” sites like Associated Content, which allowed writers to write whatever they wanted (including low-quality stuff).  Then, the content farm would take all of the content, optimize it for the search engines, and get great rankings out of it.

Panda 2.0 aimed to improve the quality of search results by including data about sites users blocked.  It also attempted to improve the results of long-tail keywords (key phrases made of 3 or more keywords and not searched as commonly as many other keywords).

Feel free to follow those links and learn a little more about those Google updates, but be sure to stay tuned to this series to keep up with what happened the rest of the year.

That’s a Nice Review, but What about Panda 2.1?

Panda 2.1 was originally feared by some to really be Panda 3.0.  What this means in layman’s terms is that many SEO experts believed Panda 2.1 would have a much larger impact on the search results than it ended up having in reality.

Officially released on May 9, 2011, Google claimed Panda 2.1 would impact far fewer search results than either 2.0 or the original Panda update.  Google never officially stated what this update would actually do.

What Results did User Reports Show?

Google is notorious for taking an official stance, and then having data observed by a variety of users totally contradict what it announced.

Interestingly, Google’s own algorithm is so complicated in nature that often Google engineers don’t have control over the final website rankings.  In Panda 2.1, for example, user “tedster” at this Webmasterworld.com thread noted a Google search reported a web page was removed, when it fact it was not.

User “crobb305” noted a 70% recovery level in traffic he had lost as a result of the update.  You talk about scary!  He also observed drops of particular pages of about 300 to 400 positions, then a gain of 300 to 400 positions, followed by a drop.

User “maxumer” stated he had an 80% drop on all traffic over a period of several days.  To him, it appeared to have the effect of one of Google’s penalties.  But, at the same time, he hadn’t broken any of Google’s big no-no’s – buying and selling links, farming content, or scraping content.  He also saw his keywords appear on page on of Google’s ranking on one browser, but in completely different rankings on other browsers.

What Does all of This Add up To?

In one word, “CHAOS!”  For the most part, the update didn’t seem to have a large impact on most websites.  But, on the other hand, many more users than the 3 mentioned here noted dramatic changes in their own rankings!

What’s really going on?  Does Google even know?  Does it have some sort of hidden agenda, like it seemingly always does?

What changes would you like to see in Google for 2012?

In two of its previous updates, the Attribution Update and Panda, Google took a strong position in favor of ranking quality content higher.  At the same time, it would drop, or sometimes even entirely remove, low-quality content from its rankings.

The Attribution Update targeted sites with low levels of original content and sites that copied content from other sites.  Panda’s main goal was to return the highest-quality result for your search.  So, if you searched for the cure to a health condition, pages from our federal government’s website would be more likely to be ranked highly than pages from someone’s blog.

As a result of these updates, Google received a ton of positive feedback from searchers, and sites with high-quality content reported receiving even more traffic.

In Panda 2.0, released on April 11, 2011, Google began to include data about sites users block into its algorithm.  It would then take those sites and rank them lower in its rankings.

Additionally, Panda 2.0 would evaluate the results of “long tail” websites.  “Long tail” keywords usually refers to key phrases made up of 3 or more words.  These words typically return lower-quality results than shorter key phrases of 2 words or less.

Panda 2.0 would delve deeper into those long-tail results and increase Google’s ability to return quality results.  Amit Singhal, one of Google’s lead engineers, noted that about 2% of U.S. search queries would be affected.

Also at the time, users could block certain sites from their search results, and Panda 2.0 took this block data into account when ranking sites.

Google stated that it was very pleased with the results of this update, and while it wouldn’t consider any exceptions to the rule, it would nonetheless take feedback from website owners into account.

How Could Panda 2.0 Affect Your Site?

As with all recent Google updates, you are being increasingly forced to focus on having high-quality content on your site.  No longer can you slam down the first thing coming to mind, spatter some keywords in it, and publish it.

Now, you have to think it through and write something people will like.  

• What is “High-Quality” Anyway?
• What is considered “high-quality” on the internet is much different that what is high-quality for print publication.  But, that’s because online reading is a much different animal than reading print publications.
• Online, people are looking for an answer to their question while having to read the fewest words possible.  Most articles go no longer than 500 words, and most people don’t even read all of those words.

Online, basically if you do the following, you should be all right:

• Make sure your content is engaging
• Ensure your content solves a problem people have
• Make sure that just about anyone can understand it
• Proofread to make sure you have no spelling or grammar errors

By following that simple procedure, your content should have no problem being labeled “high-quality”, under seo services standards.

Be sure to stay tuned for more parts in this series!

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What was the Goal of Panda?

In this part of the Google Updates series, we’ll take a look at Google’s attention-getting Panda Update.  Many steps that Google had taken previously, including the Attribution Update, were hinting at Google’s increased focus on quality.

Google aimed to provide users with higher-quality results in this update.  If you were searching for a solution for a complex health condition, results from a federal government website should rank above other general information sites.  This wasn’t always the case in the past.

The update was targeting content farms like Associated Content.  If you’re not a techie, you might be wondering what a content farm is.

Content farms pay writers a very low wage to produce large amounts content.  The content is then designed to take advantage of the current search engine ranking methodologies to rank as highly as possible.

While the content may have ranked highly, quality was never a concern for these sites.  You could write just about anything you wanted.

Since Google’s goal is to return the best possible results to its users, the rankings of content at these sites were lowered.  Neither of Google’s spokesmen, Amit Singhal or Matt Cutts, would officially say they were aiming at content farms.  But, they did say that people knew what kinds of sites were targeted.

How much of an Impact Did Panda Make?

The Panda Update made a huge impact!  It affected about 12% of all searches performed.  Many websites experienced deep traffic and rankings losses.

One observation made by Jill Whalen of Highrankings.com was that sites with a large amount of content hidden behind tabs also experienced a loss in rankings.

You’re familiar with those kinds of sites.  These are the ones where you have a menu across the top of the page, with what appears to be file-folder-like tabs.  Google chooses to see sites with tabs as one large page.

Since Google chose to see those sites as one large page, they appeared to not be user-friendly.  Google then lowered the rankings of these sites.

An additional observation she made was that the rankings of those “merry-go-round” sites were also lowered.
You’re familiar with this type of site too.  You’ve clicked on a result in Google, only to be sent to a page that didn’t show what you say in Google’s search results.  Then, you clicked on a link at the website.  Then you realized you either clicked on an advertisement or another link that takes you to somewhere else you didn’t want to go.

Everyone can thank Google for lowering the rankings of those sites!

What to Do in the Future?

Basically, the Panda Update aimed to improve the quality of Google’s search results.  And, Google is only interested in continuing to increase that quality.

If you’ve owned a website for some time now, or if you’re planning to start one, Google has made it clear that your first concern should be quality content supporting quality seo.

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Here is a continued look at Google Updates from 2011:

Earlier this year on January 28th, Google released its’ new Attribution Update.  If you’re not aware of this update, that’s okay.  Absolute Placement Today is here to help make all these complex technological terms simple enough for anyone to understand.

According to Matt Cutts, Google’s lead engineer, the main point of the update was to help reduce the spam levels in Google’s search results.  Sites that copied the content of other sites and sites with low levels of original content were specifically targeted.

These sites would either be ranked much lower or entirely eliminated from Google’s search results.  The update would affect about 2% of all searches.  However, you would probably only notice about a half percent change in the search results.

Before this update, Google was actually ranking copied content higher than its’ source.

Many SEO professionals were somewhat concerned about this update.  A part of many SEO strategies is article marketing.

“Article marketing” is when you either manually or automatically spread your articles across the internet.  The basic idea is that your website will gain links and free traffic.

Now that Google has decided to reduce the rankings of copied content, the question to ask is,“How did this end up affecting SEO?”

Google’s Focus on Quality is Sometimes Questionable

Well, first take a look at how Google could easily be tricked into ranking websites much higher than they should be.  The guys at SEO MOZ did their own study and found some interesting results.

First, they decided to study a pretty popular brand of merchandise, “nfl jerseys.”  Many of the results Google returned first included sites offering up to 75% off the original price.

At the time of the search, every result on the first page was fraudulent!  If you searched on other popular brands, you would get the same results.

By the process of elimination, SEO MOZ determined that the text in the back links was helping these sites to rank highly.  Not surprisingly, most of the links resulted from forum spam, blog spam, and hacked websites.

Owners of these fraudulent online shops would use special programs to post thousands of forum posts and blog comments.  On the surface, this doesn’t sound so bad.  But, since these posts and comments are generated by a computer program and not a person, they are often completely unrelated to the topic of discussion.

They’re called “spam “ because they rarely make any sense and are only present to get someone’s website a back link.

Keep in mind…Google’s Not Perfect!

What is interesting is how invested Google is in returning fresh and high-quality search results.  At the same time, Google still has difficulty in returning high-quality search results.

The Attribution Update acted as a step in the right direction.  But, it also only applied to content, not back links.

In terms of content, Google seemed to be returning higher-quality results.  But, in terms of quality websites, Google was still struggling at this time.

If you’re an SEO Service provider or if your site uses SEO services, you may or may not like this update.  In the end, it all really depends on your SEO strategy.

Stay tuned, and be prepared to learn more about future Google updates next week!