Why was the Google Panda update so important?

Why was the Google Panda update so important?

Introduction

Let’s be fair, some websites that report SEO news state that a new update is rolling out as regular as clock work.

Yet, for those that work in digital marketing, they will know that some updates are simply more significant than some others.

And most online marketing companies would agree that one of the largest updates in recent years was the Google Panda update.

Now when this update first stated rolling out in 2011 it had a lot of seo companies writing numerous blog posts, and much conversation was had on social media as to which websites the Google update was targeting.

Yet, now in 2019 you don’t hear so much commotion about the update, yet its still in place, its still weeding out rubbish quality seo.

So, we thought it’s time for a bit of a refresher course, a bit of an update on the update if you like!

So, whether you’re a business owner, SEO consultant or just someone interested in SEO, now to the time to refresh your knowledge.

 

Which websites did the Google Panda update particularly target?

Google hates rubbish seo, the search engine also hates websites that try and fool its algorithm into thinking the website is better than it is.

And this is a good thing, as us, the visitors of websites hate it when a business doesn’t offer what we want.

For example, we may wish to hire a builder, and we may land on a builder’s website, only to find they are not based anywhere near us, yet the website has had seo applied so that it appears in this area.

That can be frustrating, as it can feel that the business is trying to fool us into thinking it offers what we want, but it doesn’t, as often we will want a builder that’s based in close proximity to our home.

So, the Google Panda update targeted low quality seo techniques, and there are many. But to give you some food for thought, as to the type of seo that Google deems as low quality, we have listed some examples of rubbish seo techniques.

 

Content thin

Sometimes a business will not bother to add accurate descriptions of their products, or list a load of services, yet not give the information to the customer that they need to base a purchase decision on.

For example, a person may well be looking for a local dentist, as they want their teeth to look nice and straight. So, they look for “teeth straightening dentists + city name”.

Now this is all well and good, yet what might appear are dentists that offer this service, yet do not offer much information.

There may just be one line of text. Instead the business should be pushing the boat out, offering information and answering commonly asked questions.

So, websites that had lacklustre seo, well often these would see their rankings drop. Many digital marketing agencies believe that sometimes the whole website wouldn’t drop, that’s in terms of where it ranks for certain keywords, but a few or many pages may drop instead.

 

Spam

Ever landed on a page on a website and it’s written purely to try and improve the businesses SEO?

For example, you may want to find a plumber, but when you land on one website, the whole page just states “Plumber + city” in one long list.

Well this is a really old seo tactic, one which now doesn’t work, and is likely to get your website hit by the Panda penalty.

Spam seo like this doesn’t work.

 

Duplicated content

Sometimes some businesses think that they haven’t got the time to write unique product descriptions for each item that they sell. So, what some businesses do is copy and paste from the manufacturer’s website, yet this will lead to duplication issues.

Duplication issues can result in the business incurring a penalty, which means the websites rankings can go down.

So, out best advise is this, don’t have duplicated content on your website.

So how should our business be creating content marketing?

This ones a really simple one to answer, that’s because we always make sure that our content marketing satisfies the following criteria:

 

·        High-quality

By high-quality we mean useful, so if your answering a commonly asked question that your customers regularly ask your business, well aim should be to answer it better than any of your competitors.

 

·        Relevant

Make sure the work is relevant to your business.

·        Make sure the work is detailed, and you cite your sources

So many seo companies churn out content marketing that’s just written to hit a certain word count.

This work is normally a load of rubbish, and the person reading the work will most likely think so as well. This will then lead to a high bounce rate.

Instead the work should be detailed, yet you have to strike a balance with making sure that the work doesn’t become boring to read.

Then cite your sources, that’s to say add a backlink to another website where you found the information, or where you think your readers will be interested in heading if they wish to read more about the subject.

But our best advice is this, make it white hat, and don’t go for quantity go for quality.

 

Google’s set of questions

If you wish to read more about Google’s Panda update, then we would recommend these two articles.

 

Quality

How we can help

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