What’s black, white, and all over the internet? Google Panda! Google has begun to “roll out” the Panda update over the past few days, say SEO experts. But relax, this phasing-in appears to be a bit more subtle than previous update releases.
Google Panda Update Promenade
As you may recall, Google’s Matt Cutts previously reassured SEOers that the Panda update would take place over the span of 10 days each month. Google seconded this transparency and now, you don’t even have to guess whether or not the update is currently altering the search engine, Google already told us! Reports indicate that Google confirmed Panda’s rollout which had began on July 18th.
Analysts claim that traffic to sites when studying certain keywords has mildly fluctuated since the rolling-out. Experts note that if it wasn’t for Google’s confirmation on the release of the update, the changes would be hardly noticeable. This could be the most subtle update seen by Google yet!
What Did the Google Panda Rollout Do?
According to studies, Google’s Panda rollout continues to uphold standards for unique content as well as proper on-page SEO factors. However, one finding in recent research demonstrates that Google may now be adjusting the value of use of different social sites. Moz.com evaluated trends among social signals and correlations of various platforms and found that while sharing on Twitter and Facebook was minimally correlated (0.21 and 0.26) to page ranking and authority, activity on Google + revealed a higher correlation as a ranking factor of 0.30. Professionals predict that the search engine will likely promote utilization of Google + profiles and Google authorship in the future.
Panda The Great
Nevertheless, website owners tend to get an unsettling feeling about some of the more mysterious elements of these updates, simply because this Panda doesn’t eat bamboo. The noble Google Panda feeds on the unrighteous, criminal SEOers and website owners. Persons who have implemented any of the following dirty little SEO tricks, have every right to be a bit apprehensive of the justice-serving Google Panda:
- keyword stuffing and duplicating content (as always)
- addition of low-quality, or irrelevant content
- spamming sites with links
- “over-optimization” or abusing SEO tactics
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
But hey, if you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t be concerned, right? Right. I’ll admit it, as a contributor using proper SEO practices in the development of great, shareable content, I get a kick out of the Google Panda and Penguin updates drama. Google’s highly refined algorithm boosts quality SEO practices and tackle all those scammy, unethical SEO criminals. We just watch our pages go up, up, up!
And so with that, I leave you in the words of Bob Marley “Don’t worry about a thing. Every little thing, is gonna be alright”… if you utilize great search engine optimization techniques.
Correlation Study : http://moz.com/blog/ranking-factors-2013