Google Panda

What exactly is the Google Panda Update?

Before I explain this to you, I really need to make sure you know what Google is. Google Inc. is an American multinational corporation specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include search, cloud computing, software and online advertising technologies. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Google Search (or Google Web Search) is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. Google Search is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web, receiving several hundred million queries each day through its various services. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Google’s mission is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," and its unofficial slogan was, "Don't be evil." (Taken from Wikipedia) The way Google accomplishes that mission is by creating what is called the Google Algorithm.

Google knows you want quick answers and not millions and trillions of websites in front of you. So they have created an algorithm to do that, algorithms are computer programs that look for clues to give you exactly what you want. And there is where Google focuses the updates. Google wants to give you the best possible answer as quickest as possible.

Now talking about the Panda; I will not be technical here. I just want you to know what in the world the famous Panda update is all about. I just want you to say: Yes, I know what Panda is and I will not let that silly animal slap my website up.

Sometimes Google names their algorithm updates after names. The Google Panda is a change Google made to their algorithm released in February 2011. The purpose was to reward top search engine rankings all “higher-quality sites” and to lower the rank of “low-quality sites.”

It caused a surge in the rankings of news and social networking websites and a drop in rankings for sites containing a lot of advertising.

So now that you understand what Google and their algorithm is all about, you can now say that the Google Panda is an update made to care more for High Quality Sites and care less for Low Quality sites.

When you think on the Google Panda just think on “Highly Quality Site.” That’s all you need to think about it so you don’t get overwhelmed about all of the content about the topic.

Google has made several changes to their Panda update since February 2011. Google shares information as well on “What counts as a high-quality site.” Twenty-three bullet points is that Google itself says will help webmasters like you and me to rank well in today’s Google Search Engine.

Let me outline those 23 bullet points right away in the next subject.

How in the world do you avoid a Panda Slap?

Out of the millions of pages talking about the subject, I just decided to go to Google itself to look for a solution to this scary epidemic for low quality sites. Google has been kind enough to share a lot of information about the subject and I will give you the most relevant one.

The 23 bullet points in reality are questions that many users could ask on visiting a particular webpage, and are questions in the Google mindset that guided them through the update process:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it shallower in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

I consider these questions the solution to the scary epidemic of the Google Slap. As you can see, Google focuses on CONTENT. That is the most important thing to look at on all these questions.

I know there are a lot of marketers online that do all what it takes to game the Google search results and position their low quality sites for commercial purposes and not for real solution purposes.

What I have decided to do to avoid a Panda Slap is “Hugging the Panda” (Give to Google what they want: High Quality Sites, especially on the Content). it’s something absolute possible, we might spend a little bit more time to create highly quality sites with the greatest content; we might spend a little bit of more money to do so, but at the end, we will learn to do something that a really low amount of marketers now know how to do, and we can make a lot of more money because of it.

What Is SEO

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): consists of a set of optimization techniques applied to a website or webpage to position it at the top of the search engines results based on a keyword or set of keywords on which that website or webpage has been optimized for.

For easy understanding the process works like this:

A lady uses a search engine to search for something she is interested in finding information about. In this case we will use Google.com as our search engine example. All search engines work similar, like Yahoo and Bing, which are the best after Google.

After she performs her search; the first page of Google displays a set of highly relevant pages or domains right in front of her so she may get access to any one of them that might give the information she is looking for.

 

Every one of those websites have been in some degree optimized in order for the Google Search Engine Bot (Google Algorithm) to consider them exactly what the searcher is looking for and place them right there in the top page, as well as in the top positions of the first page.

Search Engine ranking is all about a battle where the best optimized webpages are picked by the search engines to be placed in the top and grab the eyes of all the searchers.