Panda is the name that Google gave to its new algorithm which �scores’ websites on their unique content and user-experience. The focus of Panda is to reduce the usage of websites which have �thin’, low quality and duplicate content. It also targets sites which come up short on other site-quality metrics, like high advert-to-content ratios.
Also, Panda benefited sites with lots of high-quality; unique content and which has trusted and recognized brands.
Latest Google Panda Updates:
Panda 1.0 - February 24, 2011: This is Google’s initial update to its search algorithm, which targeted content farms and scraper sites. It was designed to lower the ranking of sites with duplicate content.
Panda 2.0 - April 11, 2011: This is the first update for Google Panda expanded Panda’s to reach to all English-language search queries. This update also incorporated data about sites than individual users blocked in either the Chrome browser or via the SERPs.
Panda 2.1 - May 9, 2011: The search giant said that a much smaller percentage of sites will be affected by Panda 2.1.
Panda 2.2 - June 18, 2011: It aimed at improving its detection of scraper sites, further enhancing search results for users.
Panda 2.3 - July 22, 2011: This is a manually-pushed update that incorporates some new signals that help differentiate between higher- and lower-quality sites.
Panda 2.4 - August, 2011: Google released its Panda 2.4 on all languages except Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Google said that only six to nine percent of all non-English language search results would be affected by Panda 2.4.
Panda 2.5 - September 5, 2011: While Google declined to specifically share what changed in Panda 2.5, there were clear changes for a few sites. Android.com, YouTube and AOL.com all went up in search rankings while The Next Web and The Today Show faced decreased traffic.
Panda 3.0 - October 2011: One of the 2.x updates were labeled as a “minor� update, it should have likely been named as a major update and was thus labeled a 3.0 update.
Panda 3.1 - November 18, 2011: According to Google, it affects less than 1 percent of all search queries. Also, Google referred to Panda 3.1 as an "algorithm data refresh".
Top Heavy Update - January 19, 2012: This is based on the number of advertisements “above the fold� (top half of the site.) This penalty is projected to only affect less than 1 percent of all searches, so it is likely to go unnoticed by ordinary users, but it’s a good reminder for webmasters to keep advertisement placement in mind while designing their sites.
Panda 3.2 - January 25, 2012: It is a minor update to the Google Panda algorithm. Search Engine Land said, like Panda 3.1, it’s just a data refresh.
Panda 3.3 - February 27, 2012: This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.
Google Venice - February 27, 2012: This puts emphasis on analyzing the localized elements that comes up in organic search results. It includes localized landing pages, titles and description, content and back links. Google Venice forces more local companies to localize their SEO to improve their rankings.
Panda 3.4 - March 23, 2012: Google has announced a "Panda refresh," dubbed Panda 3.4 by Search Engine Land, that affects approximately 1.6 percent of all search queries only.
Google Panda 3.5 - April 19, 2012: This update specifically targets sites that utilize “black hat SEO� and is designed to improve its ability to fight against websites of lower quality.
Google Penguin - April 24, 2012: A new search algorithm named Google Penguin that affects about 3 percent of all search queries. According to Search Engine Land, Google is fighting against sites with “keyword stuffing; link schemes; cloaking, �sneaky’ redirects or 'doorway' pages; and purposeful duplicate content� and web spam.
Google Penguin 2 - May 26, 2012: The primary distinction between Panda and Penguin is that while both are algorithmic changes, the former is a manual penalty imposed on sites, whereas the latter is an automatic penalty. With regard to a “Pandalization,� once a site has cleaned up its links, etc. it can ask Google for reconsideration or re-inclusion to SERPs. That’s not possible with Penguin. Because it’s a change to Google’s search algorithm, your site will either rank higher or lower than it did before Penguin. Reconsideration or re-inclusion is not possible with the Penguin update.
Panda 3.7 - June 8, 2012: It affects less than one percent of all search queries in the United States and about one percent of search results worldwide.
Panda 3.8 - June 25, 2012: Panda 3.8 noticeably affects only 1% of queries worldwide.
Bad Link Warnings Update - July 20, 2012: The search giant sends out "link advisories" as well as "link warnings." These are the advisories that can be safely ignored, but if a little yellow caution symbol is present next to an unnatural link notification, it must be looked upon.
Panda 3.9 - July 24, 2012: This update provides users with search results containing higher-quality websites.
Panda 3.9.1 - August 19, 2012: This update, Panda 3.9.1, has affected less than 1 percent of all search results.
Panda 3.9.2 - September 18, 2012: It is being debated over whether it is 3.9.2 or 4.0. But regardless of the number, there will be fluctuation in search rankings
Google Panda 20 - September 27, 2012: This update affects about 2.4% of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice, with a smaller impact in other languages (0.5% in French and Spanish, for example).
Top Heavy 2 - October 9, 2012: About 0.7 percent of all search results will be affected by this algorithm update. This is the part of Google’s continuous effort to increase the amount of high-quality sites in search results.
Google Panda 21 - November 5, 2012: Unlike many of the previous updates to Google Panda, this one is affecting approximately 1.1 percent of all English search queries in the United States.
Google Panda 23 - December 21, 2012: The Panda 23 refresh is bigger than many of the recent ones. It affects around 1.3 percent all of English search queries.
Google Panda 24 - January 22, 2013: Google didn’t waste much time before it released its first Panda of 2013. Like the previous update, this one affects about 1.2 percent of all English search queries. With this data refresh, it appears Google has finally hit a consistent rhythm with its updates as this is the third in as many months.
How to Deal with Google Panda
Panda is the name that Google gave to its new algorithm which �scores’ websites on their unique content and user-experience. The focus
of Panda is to reduce the usage of websites which have �thin’, low quality and duplicate content. It also targets sites which come up
short on other site-quality metrics, like high advert-to-content ratios.
Also, Panda benefited sites with lots of high-quality; unique content and which has trusted and recognized brands.
• Quality matters. The content on your site should be original and by original I mean honest writing about your site. Rephrasing
some content that has already been written doesn’t impress Google much and it is certainly not original. Invest some time in your
editorial or content time, find out what kind of content makes your users stay longer on your site and if it is responsive to what they
are looking for. Grammatically correct spelled out content is fine but doesn’t work. Again it’s all about quality, lines that are
unique to your site.
• A high bounce rate on your site or page affects your rankings. Find out if users are just bouncing through your site or
actually spending some decent time browsing it. If it’s just a few clicks through a few pages, it shows a lack of interest on the
user’s side and also doesn’t go well with Google.
• A good amount of traffic with diversity on your site certainly helps. That said, you are going to optimize around user and
usage metrics. Find out how much time your user spends on particular pages and what all pages lack interesting content and work on it.
• If your users aren’t sharing or linking your website or pages or are not enjoying visiting them and are going back to their
initial search results then your traffic won’t be up, check keywords ranking and fix that
problem before Panda calculates that.
• A high ad to content ratio again hurts your ranking. If a user is coming to your website looking for something in particular
and finds too many silly advertisements with minimal content, they are probably going to think it’s a spam or a useless website and
won’t stay long. So plan on changing that to rank up higher.
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Akhil Gupta is a SEO specialist and founder of Check Keyword Ranking a service which makes checking search engine ranking economical and efficient. It is a pay-as-you-go service and extremely useful for small site owners.
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