Google Panda Hits the UK

If you are in or around the internet industry it is likely you will have heard that Google released a search update (nicknamed Google Panda or Farmer) which has changed the way their algorithms view content and, in turn, how they will ranks sites with poor quality content. This is the first major attempt to deter the rising number of content farms which are recycling content to earn ad revenue.

The United States was the first country that had the changes made to the rankings and there have been some big names caught in the update. This is a massive problem for some websites such as hubpages and ezinearticles which have lost a number of rankings for some keywords.

It must be added that these sites have also increased in ranking in some instances as well. This is purely down to the quality of the content indexed around a particular search phrase. There are also some on site elements that seems to be effecting whether a website will increase or decrease in rankings such as percentage of space given on pages for ads and the age and style of the HTML.

Basically Google is putting the user first. They are looking for sites with the best possible content and ranking them higher. They are also devaluing the sites which add content just to earn money from Google AdSense. This is a bold move by Google, considering their main revenue stream is from these ads.

Now that the update has been rolled out to all of the English speaking languages, webmasters will be watching their rankings closely to make sure the update doesn’t negatively affect them. Rumours are if your content is already being picked up and published by Google news then you shouldn’t be affected as your site has already been manually reviewed by Google.

If you’re worried about the quality of the content on your site or you have already been affected by the updated then there are some simple steps you can follow to limit the damage:

1. Remove or replace any poor quality content – This is not an easy task and shouldn’t be underestimated. As a general rule all of your content should make sense, be well written and grammatically correct. Quite simply if the content is beneficial to the user then it will be liked by Google.

2. Remove excessive adverts – Anything above 20% of the page will be seen as excessive. Ideally the adverts should be used to aid the content. If this is the case then you are more likely to get a higher rate of clicks and earn more money.

3. Reposition adverts – If the adverts are in the way of the content and make it hard to read it will not be beneficial to the user. This could lead to you being affected by the Google Panda update.

4. Make sure all of your content is unique – as always with Google if your content is not unique it will have no impact and could also lead to you being negatively affected in the rankings.

5. Don’t be a content farm – Make sure that any content you add to your site adds value to the web. The internet is now so big that the search engines have to catch up and stop people from gaming them to increase search positions. As long as you have high quality content that adds value to the internet you and your site should be fine!