Jun
14
Arguably one of the most significant and game-changing algorithm updates to hit the industry in recent times, Google’s Panda update has rocked the webmaster community and become a key conversation topic in SEO meeting rooms across the world. Initially known as Farmer due to the type of site content it was targeting, Panda was deployed to level the SEO playing field, clean up all the content spam from the index, and elbow brands into creating unique, useful content – moving the goalposts away from the content farm, scraping and link building end of the field and down towards the social media stands.
However, with the industry in such a furious tailspin two months since the update’s inevitable roll-out in the UK, what has been the actual impact of Panda? SEO forums are awash with Lovecraftian horror yarns of sites losing as much as 60% of their overall visits as a direct result of Panda’s swiping claw, all desperate for a quick-win; some expert-led cement to fill the cracks in their equally quick-win campaigns. And who can blame them? After all, such significant losses in traffic in the long term could be attributable to bankruptcy, particular for smaller companies who lack the necessary budget to engage in wide scale social media campaigns and content strategies.
Perhaps most disturbing is that in some cases, scraper sites are still outranking the very sites they’re scraping from – proof that Google’s been too quick in rolling out Panda; compounded by their recent backtracking and slurry of decimal point ‘updates’, all promising to ensure a more consistent vision of the SERPS and justice served to the original publishers of online content. However, more than 80% of webmasters hit by Panda claim to have seen no uplift or improvement despite making positive changes to affected pages. Google has asserted that no manual exceptions have or will be made in the near future, meaning these webmasters will have to sit tight until justice is automated – a definite contradiction in terms, but one the wider ecommerce community will just have to settle with.
There’s no doubt that the playing fields needed be levelled, and Google’s deep clean of the index has been warmly welcomed by the majority of a webmaster community tired of seeing the same boilerplate articles, duplicate content and ten-for-a-penny press releases. Those affected by the updates will be frantic, but provided they move into a more robust content model which focuses more on usefulness, authority and shareability, the traffic they once enjoyed will undoubtedly return. There’d be no long-term benefit in Google making manual exceptions to those who deserve it at this point, as doing so would serve to undermine the algorithm and make a lot of angry people even angrier. Far better is to continue to abide by the Webmaster Guidelines, resist the temptation to engage in quick win strategies (there’s a LOT of dubious SEO companies out there licking their lips after Panda) and get to work on improving their individual social channels and content strategies – particularly in terms of how they’re engaging their visitors.
The Panda Panic has been caused by both Google’s heavy handed approach and inexperienced webmasters’ inability to see the clearer path, but as long as brands and SEO’s continue to keep their noses clean, I’m sure we’ll all soon be able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, giving the Panda a big poke in the eye with a big social stick of content flavoured bamboo.
