Google Panda Update – Get Ranked, NOT Penalized
The Google Panda Update… The Latest and Greatest!
In Google’s pursuit of giving their Internet searchers more quality content to read, Google Panda was born.
“Google Panda is a change to the Google’s search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of “low-quality sites”, and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results. Google is looking out for the user, that’s why Panda was created.”Source (Wikipedia)
Google Panda’s Main Focus… Reduce Rankings for Low Quality Sites!
Areas to Concentrate ON!
- Stop the Over Optimization Tactics
- Reduce Your Site’s Bounce Rate with Relevancy
- Get Social Approval to Prove Worthiness
- Avoid Duplicate Content
- Removing Excessive Advertising (Especially Above the Fold)
There are More, but we are going to cover only a couple today.
Here’s what Google is saying “Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.” Source (Google Blog)
“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” (Source: Google Blog)
There is a large amount of information out there in cyberspace that tells you what the Google Panda update will be looking for, but few and far between offer the solutions.
I Optimize Entrepreneurs & Professional Blogger’s Articles to meet the requirements of the search engines, so on that note, let’s go deeper and cover a few overlooked areas that I come across.
Let’s talk about a couple of things that you can do to stay in Google’s Good Graces!
# 1. Stop repeating the same keyword phrase over and over… this is going to get you penalized for Keyword Stuffing, I.E. Over Optimization. Google and other search engines have progressed beyond simple Keyword Density percentages, meaning in its pursuit to send Internet users to quality content, it is not using Keyword Density as strongly as it used to.
If you use the SEOPressor WordPress Plugin, you need to read the following article: The SEOPressor Plugin… Priceless or Failure?
What counts more today is the proper formatting and the positions of your keywords… Keyword Prominence and Proximity come to mind which you can learn more about at the following Keyword Density article… applying these methods will help set you apart from your competition, so be sure to check it out.
Google is also judging indexing positions for word association, to include synonyms and the content contained… MEANING, the search engines today are keeping an eye out for the natural flow of articles written believing to be more human friendly.
So… if you’d like to screw up your pages, destroy your credibility as a writer, and aggravate your visitors, repeating the same keyword phrase over and over is the way to do it. A person that will stop at nothing to get their page’s ranked by trying to meet a certain keyword density is creating content difficult to read… it also looks spammy and sounds robotic.
Here is Keyword Density as explained by SEOMoz “If search engines derived document relevancy based heavily on keyword density, then all you would have to do is repeat your target term over and over to get pages to rank. Search engines are not that dumb. Keyword density ratios fail to take into account the relative position (contextual relevancy) and relative dispersion (distribution) of terms in the document or how many documents are relevant for the term.” Source (SEOMoz on Keyword Density)
Still NOT Satisfied… HERE is What Matt Cutts of Google Has to Say about IT!
My opinion… if it warrants a repeat of the same keyword phrase, then by all means do it, but if you read it out loud and it does not flow or sound right, find other wording to use.
# 2. Find more targeted keyword phrases to reduce your bounce rate and keep people interested… Google is counting on the human reader element to determine if your content is worthy or not. This is called user experience. With the Panda update, Google is trying to measure the user experience in terms of “Average Time on Site”, “Bounce Rate” and a number of other factors.
If a person arrives at your site’s page and they turn around and leave because your page did not appear to match their search query, this will cause a higher bounce rate.
Of course this is based on a percentage, but your greatest chances of reducing your bounce rate and keep their attention would be to stop using generic keywords that have nothing to do with your content or have two or more different meanings, examples, Java… this could mean coffee or computer language… how about mixed greens… this could mean mixed salad or the colors of paint… be more specific!
It’s time to do proper keyword research using my old saying from the horse trainer Pat Parelli… “Take the Time that it Takes, so it Takes Less Time”… in other words take the time to do it right the first time so you don’t have to come back and redo it.
With the Google Panda Update, the Super Power that seems to control the Internet is looking for relevancy, so take the time to find that main keyword phrase that targets the specific information on your page… usually considered a Long Tailed Keyword Phrase which is more relevant and targeted.
It would also be a smart move to find Semantically Relevant and Synonymously Related keyword phrases too, plus those Stemmed and Variants of your main keyword phrase… these will be keywords that you can slip in to your content as supportive phrases which will give a boost of your main keyword phrase and will continue the relevancy factor that Google is using in its Panda Update.
There are other factors of bounce rate that you can read about, but my purpose today was to cover the relevancy factor to reduce your visitors quick departure.
Closing Comments about the Google Panda Update!
There are many people on the self destructive path ready to have their site’s pages penalized unless they are willing to do something about it, NOW!
IT’S SIMPLE… If your interest is to have ongoing success with your website, then make sure you follow the guidelines that Google states and offer your readers value. Google is constantly making improvements with its algorithm to rid the low quality sites, therefore if your main focus is trying to find loopholes to cheat the system, do not count on your website to rank well for very much longer.
Since Google is on a mission to penalize low quality sites, it is in your best interest to make your changes NOW!
If you DON’T, the Google Panda update is going to eventually catch up to you! And, if you put it OFF and get penalized, it will be a long road ahead to get back in Google’s GOOD Graces!
If you are ready to move on to the next step, follow the link for my article ‘Keyword Optimization | How to Optimize for Google!’
ENOUGH SAID!
