Google Panda and Penguin Updates Overview

1. a tour of new features
introducing
Google Panda and
Penguin

2. Presentation topics:
We have updates for every step of the way

3. Google Panda Update
Overview

4. Getting Started with Google Panda
According to Google’s official blog post
when Panda launched:
 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.

5. Panda 1.0 (Farmer Update) Panda 2.0
February 24, 2011 April 11, 2011
Panda 2.1 Panda 2.2
May 9, 2011 June 18, 2011
Panda updates and their
Panda 2.3 Panda 2.4
July 22, 2011 August 2011
Panda 2.5 Panda 2.5.1
September 28th 2011 October 9th 2011
release dates
Panda 2.5.2 Panda 2.5.3
October 13th 2011 October 19/20th 2011
Panda 3.1 Panda 3.2
November 18th 2011 January 15th 2012
Panda 3.3 Panda 3.4
February 26th 2012 March 23rd 2012
Panda 3.5
April 19th 2012

6. Panda 1.0
(Farmer Update)
February 24, 2011

7. So what is special about Google Panda?
 The changes were made to target a specific type of website, those with low quality
content (article directories, like goarticles.com). The reason for this was that feedback
from Google users showed that were not interested in the results from websites like
eHow and ezinearticles.com.
 The changes were rolled out very slowly over a period of time. In fact Google is still
working on this specific set of changes after nearly two months of tweaking.
 It is speculated that all other normal updates to Google have stopped.
 The impact to specific websites has been huge. Some websites, like eHow, have
reported a drop in traffic by almost a third. (30% of traffic gone over night)
Panda 1.0 (Farmer Update)

8. So what is Google Penalizing?
 Duplicate content
 “Low quality content” meaning pages with only small amounts of information
 Domains that are seen to be content scraping, stealing information.
 Websites that have a high bounce rate or exit rate.
 At this stage this measure is highly speculative, but Google has hinted at it.
Panda 1.0 (Farmer Update)

9. So what can you do if you are affected?
 Do nothing. Don’t panic! Wait and see maybe for the next Google Updates you
may see your website ranking improve suddenly.
 Slow down on “off-page SEO”. Again, right now you don’t know what websites
will be classed as quality and those that won’t.
 Keep building unique content, don’t syndicate. Keep writing good content, and
don’t then try to “spin” this out to article directories.
 Last resort: Check for duplicate content and reword what you have. Have a look
at your most affected pages, and then check to see if someone has ripped off
your content.
 Reword and rewrite the ones that you think are most affected. Again, this is a last
resort, because it will not improve your ranking overnight.
Panda 1.0 (Farmer Update)

10. Panda 2.0
April 11, 2011

11. Impacts all English speaking countries
 The original algorithm update impacted only U.S. queries. As of today, this change is
live for all English queries worldwide. This includes both English speaking countries
(such as searches on google.co.uk, and google.com.au) and English queries in non-
English countries (for instance, for a searcher using google.fr who’s chosen English-
language results).
“We’re focused on showing users the highest quality, most relevant pages on the web.
We’re cautious not to roll out changes until we’re confident that they improve the user
experience, while at the same time helping the broader web ecosystem. We incorporate
new signals into our algorithm only after extensive testing, once we’ve concluded that
they improve quality for our users.” -- Amit Singhal
Panda 2.0

12. What To Do If Your Site Is Impacted
 Can visitors easily find their way around?
 Is it obvious what topic each page is about?
 Is the content original or is it aggregated from other sources?
 Do the number and placement of the ads obscure the visitor’s ability to quickly
access the content?
 When looking objectively at the site, is the primary focus the user need or the
business goal?
 Is the content on the page authoritative and valuable? Does it answer the query
better than other pages on the web?
 If some of the pages on the site are very high quality and engaging, are other
pages on the site not as high quality? (Google has stated that enough low quality
content on a site can reduce the entire site’s rankings, not just the low quality pages.)
Panda 2.0

13. Winners/
Losers

14. Winners

15. Losers

16. “Panda friendly”
Panda updates do not happen at regular
intervals, and Google doesn’t re-index every
site each time, so some site owners were
forced to deal with low traffic for several
months until Google got around to re-
crawling their website and taking note of any
positive changes.

17. GooglePenguin Update
Overview

18. Important algorithm change targeted at webspam.
Penguin is…

19. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s
existing quality guidelines.” Google mentions that typical black hat SEO tactics like
keyword stuffing (long considered webspam) would get a site in trouble, but less
obvious tactics (link incorporating irrelevant outgoing links into a page of content)
would also cause Penguin to flag your site.
“Sites affected by this change might not be easily recognizable as spamming without
deep analysis or expertise, but the common thread is that these sites are doing much
more than white hat SEO; we believe they are engaging in webspam tactics to
manipulate search engine rankings.”
-- Google

20. Site owners should be sure to check their Google
Webmaster accounts for any messages from Google
warning about your past spam activity and a potential
penalty. Google says that Penguin has impacted about
3.1% of queries (compared to Panda 1.0’s 12%). If you saw
major traffic losses between April 24th and April 25th,
chances are Penguin is the culprit, even though Panda 3.5
came out around the same time.

21. Many in the SEO community have speculated that some contributing factors to
Penguin might be things like:
1. Aggressive exact-match anchor text
2. Overuse of exact-match domains
3. Low-quality article marketing & blog spam
4. Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links

22. What Rand Fishkin can say about Google Penguin?
 It's (weirdly) not focused on improving search quality
 It appears to affect some of the worst spam (but not all) and
some very light forms of spam/manipulation (oddly)
 Not tied to on-page or on-site necessarily, though outlinks may
be looked at and several other updates occurred at similar
times (making it tough to reverse engineer what might have
caused a penalty)
 Appears to affect a disproportionate number of web service
industry sites (though that could be correlation, not causation)
 Not yet clear if this a rolling update (though there are signs it
may be)
 Left a lot of very strange, "empty" types of results in many of
the spammiest verticals/SERPs
Video URL: https://plus.google.com/u/1/+SEOmoz/posts/hHaXg8Rs5Lf

24. 1. Overly-optimized sites will continue to be targets.
Based on Google's stated interest in stopping sites that intentionally manipulate
the natural search engine results pages (SERPs) from ranking well, we'll continue
to see future algorithm changes designed to punish indicators of over-optimization.
But simply saying "Don't over-optimize your site," isn't realistic, as there's no way to
know which specific optimization metrics Google is able to measure and track. It's also
not possible to determine where the line between effective on-page SEO and
over-optimization will be drawn.

25. 2. Visitor engagement matters more than ever.
Another factor that I expect to be important in future ranking algorithm updates is
the level of visitor engagement occurring on a site. Since Google promotes the sites
that its users will find valuable, one might assume that sites that demonstrate high
engagement will be rewarded in future updates.
Again, the specific metrics that the Google can detect and track in order to measure
visitor engagement aren't immediately apparent. As a general rule, a few of the specific
items webmasters should focus on are the presence of customer reviews, article
comments and social networking follow-through.

26. 3. Content quality will grow in importance.
Although Google has made no secret of its desire to reward high-value content with
top SERPs rankings, too many webmasters still rely on keyword-optimized or
copied-and-pasted content to fill their pages.
Even if your site wasn't affected by the Panda or Penguin updates, you shouldn't
assume that you're safe. Google has made every indication that it intends to weed
out low value results from the search results. Getting your content quality up now
offers one of the best opportunities to protect your site from future changes.

28.  http://www.brickmarketing.com/blog/panda-penguin-updates.htm
 http://www.creativedevelopment.com.au/seo/what-is-google-panda-aka-farmer-
update/#.UFbaDcViUrY
 http://searchengineland.com/google-rolls-out-its-panda-update-internationally-
and-begins-incorporating-searcher-blocking-data-72497
 http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-on-googles-penguin-update
References

29. Yvette M. Divino
Jr. SEO Specialist
THANK YOU…
by: Yvette M. Divino