Google Panda: Putting Content Farms Out to Pasture
What it is: In February 2011, Google rolled out a major new algorithm. It was called "Farmer" because it was targeted at demoting high-volume content farms in Google search results. The update eventually became known as Panda, a reference to the name of Google engineer Navneet Panda. Since February 2011, Google Panda has been updated 20 times, Meyers says.
The initial Panda update reportedly affected the rankings of nearly 12 percent of all search results, according to the Search Engine Land blog.
Google's goal: Panda was designed to push down
sites that are overly optimized, offer "thin" content and/or operate as
content farms, explains Michael Martin, SEO manager at Covario,
a global search marketing agency. (A content farm produces large
amounts of content specifically to attract traffic from search engines
and use those page views to generate easy advertising revenues.)
Meyers gives as an example a pest control service, operating nationwide, which may have created a specific Web page for every U.S. city in which it operates. The content on those pages is nearly identical except for the different geographic locations. With Panda, Google's search technology is better able to identify nearly duplicate content like that, recognize that those pages offer no real value to its users and push that content way down in search result rankings.
What you should do: Don't create content simply based on keyword optimization or post thousands of pages with nearly duplicate content. If you do, Google is likely to push down your entire site in its rankings, Meyers advises. Instead, make sure your site's content is as unique as possible and that it adds reader value. Ask yourself: "What does my content do for people who find it?" Does it help them, educate them or engage them in some way?
News: Google to Punish Sites with Many Ads At the Top of Pages
Sometimes, duplicate content is part of what a company legitimately offers. A large publishing company, for instance, may publish the same article on multiple sites it owns. In those cases, to avoid a Google penalty, publishers should properly identify the parent content and make sure others use rel=canonical to point back to the original content, Martin says. (You can learn more at the Google Webmaster Tools' rel=canonical tutorial.)
What it is: In February 2011, Google rolled out a major new algorithm. It was called "Farmer" because it was targeted at demoting high-volume content farms in Google search results. The update eventually became known as Panda, a reference to the name of Google engineer Navneet Panda. Since February 2011, Google Panda has been updated 20 times, Meyers says.
The initial Panda update reportedly affected the rankings of nearly 12 percent of all search results, according to the Search Engine Land blog.
Google's goal: Panda was designed to push down
sites that are overly optimized, offer "thin" content and/or operate as
content farms, explains Michael Martin, SEO manager at Covario,
a global search marketing agency. (A content farm produces large
amounts of content specifically to attract traffic from search engines
and use those page views to generate easy advertising revenues.)Meyers gives as an example a pest control service, operating nationwide, which may have created a specific Web page for every U.S. city in which it operates. The content on those pages is nearly identical except for the different geographic locations. With Panda, Google's search technology is better able to identify nearly duplicate content like that, recognize that those pages offer no real value to its users and push that content way down in search result rankings.
What you should do: Don't create content simply based on keyword optimization or post thousands of pages with nearly duplicate content. If you do, Google is likely to push down your entire site in its rankings, Meyers advises. Instead, make sure your site's content is as unique as possible and that it adds reader value. Ask yourself: "What does my content do for people who find it?" Does it help them, educate them or engage them in some way?
News: Google to Punish Sites with Many Ads At the Top of Pages
Sometimes, duplicate content is part of what a company legitimately offers. A large publishing company, for instance, may publish the same article on multiple sites it owns. In those cases, to avoid a Google penalty, publishers should properly identify the parent content and make sure others use rel=canonical to point back to the original content, Martin says. (You can learn more at the Google Webmaster Tools' rel=canonical tutorial.)
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