The Panda Strikes Again
The Panda strikes again! Just before this send you into a bit of a panic, fear not, unless your website is in Japanese or Korean as these are the two languages which are being affected. According to Google’s official Twitter feed on July 18th 2012, this will affect <5% of queries and no other languages being affected. Until recently it has been targeting websites written in English with plans to roll out to other languages at a future date, it seems the future is now here.
So, what’s the point of these updates? According to Google’s official Blog, this is to ensure that searches return higher quality websites and more relevant material in relation to your query. Changes and tweaks to their algorithm happen on a daily basis and most of the times webmasters are oblivious to these changes; however, it is only when drastic changes happen that webmasters react. Google’s philosophy seems to work on the principle of “you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs”, in other words, you can’t improve quality of searches without affecting those Google deem to be of low quality. Quality is based on numerous factors such as content, inbound links, seniority as well as on site optimisation. Google’s famous algorithm is a closely kept secret known only to a few, however, whenever Google releases information that they are tweaking it or carrying out modifications to it, it seems to make webmasters quake in their boots!
In order to keep the right side of Google and to make sure their Pandas and Penguins are happy little chappies, make sure your site contains the sort of useful information you would expect to find if you were looking for the product you are marketing, if you are working with the right SEO company, they’ll be able to advise you on how to keep your website in good terms with Google as well as the other search engines.
