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Google Panda: How to Avoid a Devastating Downgrade

Some people make it their life’s work to get their website to the top of Google. If that’s you, and you were, up until recently, winning the battle, but then all of a sudden disappeared off the search engine radar, you could have been downgraded in the latest Google cull.

Google Panda is the name given to a major update introduced by the search engine giant earlier this year. Its aim is to improve the quality of search results so that visitors have a better online experience. So that when they land on a website, they are actually met with useful, up to date and interesting information that is relevant to their search, as opposed to content that was created solely for the purpose of getting to the top of the rankings.

When Google rolled Panda out in the USA in February, a number of very prominent organisations saw their rankings take a substantial dive. This included Microsoft’s shopping comparison site Ciao whose ranking dropped by almost 94%, the British Medical Journal and Computer Weekly. Sites known as ‘content farms’, such as Ehow and Mahalo, have also been hit hard.

Winners of the Panda update include YouTube, The Mirror and The Independent; This is Money, eBay UK and the National Lottery site.

99% of internet users give up after the first two pages of search results, so suddenly dropping down the rankings can seriously cut website traffic, which can have a devastating effect on sales.

Gearing Towards a Better Online Experience

You probably agree it’s incredibly frustrating to land on a website and be met with irrelevant information, heavy sales scripts, spelling mistakes and generally poor quality wording. And so step in Google Panda, the programme designed to penalise websites that do just that. How?

Google Panda is using various strategies including penalising sites that ‘scrape’ copy from others and demoting sites where people don’t stay long to read the content.

Rewards are given to websites that update content on a regular basis and are committed to delivering quality information to their visitors. Here’s a rundown of how you can make sure your website falls in favour with the Panda:

Ensure your content is truly original; don’t copy it from elsewhere on the web

Make sure all copy is 100 per cent free from spelling and grammar mistakes

Take time to check the ‘usefulness’ rating of your information; does it inform and educate, or just waffle around your key words?

Keep your content up to date; add new postings and pages on a regular basis. Ask your website designer to include a place on your site where you can add new content easily.

Make your website a useful resource that people feel compelled to return to by adding guides, reports, events, news – this is called making your site ‘sticky’ – visitor loyalty and time spent on your site reading your information will make a real difference.

Quote respected and useful resources to enhance the trust element.

If you want to avoid being negatively affected by Google Panda, you’ll need to make sure your content is quality content. If you can’t do that by yourself, seek help from a professional copywriter and a website designer who know the ins and outs of this latest update.