Originally posted on the High Profile Enterprises blog
It has been a year now since the infamous Google Panda update was covertly rolled out.
Now is probably a good time to do a bit of analysis on whether it has achieved what it set out to do.
How has Panda altered the way people approach search engine optimization?
Did it succeed with what Google set out to achieve?
First of all…
What exactly is the Google Panda Update?
The Panda Update could be described as a clip-on rather than a change in the Google algorithm. The algorithm itself is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world and it is amended and updated more than 500 times a year.
The Panda Update is run periodically to improve the quality of a searcher’s experience by providing search results that are as relevant as possible. It does this by penalising sites that appear to have thin or low value content.
The Update has been run ten times that we are aware of – the most recent one on January 18th of this year!
Who was the Panda Update targeting?
There had been a major build-up of poor quality content over the last few years. A huge number of Internet marketing programs were and still are being sold to new online marketers. The potential to make a ton of money by teaching people how to manipulate search engine results in order to make sales of products, businesses or services is just too attractive to resist for some people.
And the organic results were free!
A couple of years ago you could research a keyword, write an article, create a press release, make a video, post on a Web 2.0 site and publish a blog with almost identical content and you would end up with 5 or more positions in the search results on Page One for the keyword!
Wow!
Continue reading
