Google has announced that its latest algorithm update, Panda 4.1, is rolling out. The Panda update is aimed at better identifying low-quality content. The results are: high-quality small to medium sized sites ranking higher, and those that have low-quality contents to drop.
The last Panda, version 4.0, was released back in May 2014, Head of Google's Webspam confirmed this, and said that it was aimed at preventing sites with poor-quality contents from ranking high. That update had a greater impact than 4.1, affecting around 7.5 percent of all English queries. Google said that depending on location, Panda 4.1 can affect about 3-to-5 percent of search queries.
Google launched Panda 4.1 on September 25th, 2014. The 4.1 update is the 27th Panda Google has released. The company said that the 4.1 is a "slow rollout", this means that not many people will notice a change. But sudden change can still occur. If you see a huge drop in Google traffic, it may or may not be related to Panda 4.1. Google is constantly making changes, you may have been impacted by other algorithms, user interface changes or manual actions.
The slow rollout also means that anyone who was penalized by the previous Panda has a chance to emerge, if they make the appropriate changes. So if you are hit by the Panda, you have time to recover if you alter your site. The slow rollout also means that new sites that weren't not previously hit by Panda might get impacted.
If your site was impacted by the Panda 4.0 and you had made changes to made your contents appropriate, you should see an increase in your organic traffic. If not, you need to work more because the 4.0 update is aiming to get sites that host low-quality contents to drop even lower.
For those that are affected by the Panda 4.1 update, you may notice that you site has a sudden decrease in organic search traffic since this past few days. As the update is aimed at filtering out poor-quality contents, the best chance you have in recovering from the Panda 4.1 is to get rid of those contents and start creating high-quality contents that are valuable to your visitors.
Prior to the original Panda, websites can rank high easier by publishing short contents that target specific keywords or phrases. By successfully targeting those, the websites can rank well in Google's search results in a small amount of time.
But since the Panda was introduced, this 'thin' contents won't get websites anywhere close to the top of its search results page.
To identify whether you have thin content on your website, you may perform a site audit or search engine visibility audit via Google Webmaster Tools to determine which pages perform bad in the recent times, and them improve their quality. You can also add outbound links to authoritative sites, put more images and other multimedia contents, offer more coverage about a specific topic your site is aimed in delivering, etc..
The Panda algorithms are a complementary partner to the Penguin algorithms, which targets spammy websites, especially those found in violation of Google's guidelines about linking. After the Penguin and the Panda, the Hummingbird reinforced everything that had been done by both, and by highlighting the importance of mobile devices, contextual search and responsive design to its search results.
Putting More 'Meat' in Contents
Contents are what drive people to your site. They come from links, both on search engines or other places on the web. Contents are what people see first, beside than looking at the performance and the design of your site.
Panda algorithms are mostly designed to reward sites that have good user experience and high-quality contents. To do so, you need to create a long, attractive, informational, 'meaty' content if you want your site to rank better in Google. Publish a 1000-1500+ word content that does a job in covering all aspects of a specific topic. Aim for keywords for a strategy and compete in 1 or 2 highly-competitive word phases.
An author expertise is a critical factor when determining the quality and authority of a piece of content. This is particularly true for content that may have an impact on the reader's well being. Wherever possible, be sure to include on-page proof of the credentials or expertise of your authors.
Beside creating high-quality contents, you should know the value of your contents. Do they achieve their intended purpose? Do they give value to readers? Google likes to useful contents that benefit human readers. Make sure that this is your primary focus.
Google, as well as other search engines, like to travel through links. In Panda, Google sees the usefulness of links from authoritative sites and pages. Just like the Penguin algorithm, the Panda searches for bad links from bad places.
To increase your rank in Google, embracing social media comes next. In the age where people likes to share things, social media has been included in Google's algorithm changes. Ensure your site contains social media share buttons and counters, and promote your content across a variety of social media channels.
If you are affected by the Panda 4.1 update, you may need time to recover because there is little known ways to recover rank, if following Google's policy, when it has been dropped. Fixing your contents may take hours to days, or even weeks to months. Depending on the severity, your site can even take a whole year to recover its rank. Focus on adding valuable content for a greater user experience. Google tracks users' engagements, so make sure that you deliver the best to your visitors.
