In internet marketing, especially in SEO, mention the word Google panda update anytime and website owners are more likely to go into a frenzy. After all, isn’t that what happens every time Google rolls out an update of any sort? Website owners are deeply concerned with anything that would wondrously affect the ranking of their website or its authority. Before we venture any further, what is Google panda? Google panda was first rolled out on February of 2011 and specifically refers to a change to the ranking algorithm of Google’s search engines. The rolling out of Google panda was aimed to boost the ranking of high-quality sites with quality content and push down the ranking of thin sites or sites that contained low or weak content.
Simply put, Google panda is a software that is ostensibly used to rank or index pages accessible through the internet. Periodical updates of the same continue to be rolled out by Google every now and then to ensure that low-quality sites do not rank higher at the detriment of high-quality content sites. Let’s face it. There are tons of information available on the internet that it becomes impossible for search engines to tell quality content from rehashed or spun content. Stumbling on useless or poor quality content that is irrelevant can leave someone with a bad taste in the mouth.
It’s this very same experience that Google panda updates addresses. The idea is to ensure that users searching for information get what they require from high-quality sites. As a website owner, you need to be in the know on how Google panda works if you are to attain or maintain a favorable ranking for your website. To this end, it’s imperative that we look at the most essential functions of Google Panda.
Scanning of websites
The Google panda software is instrumental in searching millions of websites with the sole intent of categorizing websites based on relevant keywords and ensuring that they appear in relevant search results. The categorization of websites is designed to provide great user experience when someone searches for information online.
Indexing of webpages
Once the websites have been scanned, the next step is indexing web pages based on their relevance, uniqueness and quality. Error free webpages with quality content are indexed highly as compared to error laden and low quality web pages.
Link checking
Google panda is also instrumental in checking links on a website. It basically follows links from your site to ascertain whether they contain content relevant to your website. It ascertains whether the links are of good status, natural and informative. If your websites links are good, then Google panda indexes your website highly.
Measures popularity of a site
Google panda measures the popularity of a site by looking at a number of social media sites where your website has been featured by the use of social media marketing. If your website has a heavy social media presence, high engagement and mentions, then it’s likely to be highly ranked by Google.
In a nutshell, to be on the safe side and avoid Google panda penalties every time there is an update, the best thing to do would be to ensure you post quality content that is rich in information. Avoid posting rehashed, weak and low quality content.
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