Google’s black and white creature was at it again, gobbling up sites who dared use shortcuts for SEO purposes.
The Panda 4.0 update that was announced on May 20 this year affected around 7.5% of English search queries and pushed the quality of content factor to the very top of the ladder. Those that didn’t conform to good quality and original content were forced down the search pages.
“Google is looking to reward website owners who give a great user experience for their clients which allows them to get better search results in the internet,” Mike Bird, co-founder of Social Garden, said.
“What Google is trying to do is give their customers, the people using their search engines, the best possible listings.”
Michael Jenkins, director at Shout Web Strategy, added: “At the essence of it, Panda penalised sites with poor quality content. Google also looked at usability factors to determine how relevant a site was to the user.”
Content marketing kicks arse with Panda
The latest Panda update has content marketers whooping for joy as Jon Wuebben, CEO of content marketing company, Content Launch and speaker at ADMA’s Global Forum, said the update was great news for the area.
“It’s a very positive thing for the content marketing space because ever since they started making these updates two, three years ago, it’s always been geared towards rewarding high quality original content and that’s what we’ve been doing all along,” he said.
“So what’s happened is Google has validated that with their algorithm changes, saying ‘you’re right, content is important’. A few years ago links and link building were the most important things in the whole SEO (search engine optimisation) website space, but now it’s really, about 80% I would say, the content that you create.”
A “Google Tsumai”?
While the update on May 20 may have been a boost to the content marketing space, the newest Panda has divided SEO experts, with some brushing the changes off as the “Google tsunami” that never happened and others believing it sent “shockwaves” throughout publishers.
“If you were breaking the rules then you could be completely de-mixed from Google all together,” Bird said in reference to the original 2011 Panda algorithm. “This one’s a bit softer, it’s not as harsh, but it’s certainly left a lot of shockwaves.”
While around 7.5% of English search queries have been affected, Elmo Stoop, business development director at SEO company Smart Traffic, said the update has not brought about any drastic changes for their clients.
“We haven’t really seen any difference to be honest with you,” he said.
“Apparently it’s the second biggest panda update since the first one that came out in 2011 and we haven’t seen a major ripple effect.
“It happens from time to time where everyone talks up a big update and everyone’s waiting for a Google tsunami or earthquake to come along and nothing really happens.”
David Pountney, general manager at DT, also said that from his perspective and clients, the update hasn’t had much effect.
“That’s not to say that it hasn’t changed people’s rankings and had an impact from that perspective,” he counteracted.
“Really the essence of what Google are trying to do with the Panda update…is completely aligned with what they’ve been trying to do for the past few years, which is to clamp down on low quality content, link farms and content generation farms,” he said.
So who was actually affected?
After the Panda 4.0 update, Searchmetrics released a list of ‘winners and losers’. Topping the list of “losers” were sites such as ask.com, yellowpages.com and Retailmenot.com.
Almost immediately after it was deemed a ‘loser’ from the update on the Searchmetrics list, Retailmenot.com issued a statement outlining how the company believed reports surrounding its keyword performance “greatly overstate the impact on RetailMeNot.com”.
“It is too early to judge any potential impact of the latest Google algorithm change,” the release said.
“While RetailMeNot’s traffic with Google continues to grow year-over-year, the company has experienced some shift in rankings and traffic. The company continues to believe its focus on content quality and user experience will continue to help grow the business, enable consumers to save money and drive retailer sales.”
Read the full statement here.
B&T has attempted to contact a number of the sites in Searchmetrics’ ‘winners and losers’ list (YellowPages, ebay, ask.com, RetailMeNot and Buzzfeed) however has not yet heard back.
Dan Taylor, director of analytics and insights at digital agency Deepend, said those who publish overly spammy content with little depth and is stuffed with keywords could fall victim to the update.
“As far as search rankings are concerned Google have never made specific promises that if you do X you will get Y – and never will,” he said.
“The general school of thought for good SEO is to create original content focused on delivering relevant information to the right customer on an accessible platform. If you’re consistently doing this you shouldn’t be impacted by updates targeting thin, duplicated content.”
Which is something Lorraine Elliott, author of food blog Not Quite Nigella, has found. While she doesn’t follow the updates, her editorial guidelines has “just happened to mesh with Google’s policy”.
“I don’t actually actively follow Google algorithms and updates and the reason is that my editorial policy has always centered around creating high quality, original content that is useful for readers,” she said.
Taylor said that the only sites who should be worried about the latest update are those “who haven’t already got on board with the fact that content creation is everything that Google rewards”.
Two of Australia’s magazine giants, Bauer Media and Pacific Magazines, appear to be among the publishers who have little to worry about.
Jahzeel Omar, digital strategy and operations manager at Pac Mags who manages six of the company’s brands sites hasn’t really seen any changes since the update in May, saying they aren’t attributing the sites’ growth to Panda 4.0.
“We haven’t seen any sort of fluctuation since Panda’s release. It hasn’t affected us thus far, of course we’re keeping a close eye on traffic and how organic search traffic form Google is performing across the board.”
Similarly Bauer Media has stated that “there has been little or no impact from the Google update to any of the Bauer sites”.
Independent journalism site New Matilda also hasn’t noticed a change. Chris Graham who recently took over the site in April said: “We’re not aware of any impact on New Matilda. Our site, generally speaking, doesn’t duplicate content and we haven’t noticed any drop in the rankings.”
Google isn’t the bad guy
Bird from Social Garden says the key thing publishers have to understand is that “Google is not the bad guy here”.
“What Google is trying to do is to reward those website designers who have an awesome website, who have taken the time and invested the money in order to provide heaps of value for the people who are on their site.”
Image via Shutterstock
