In March this year, the Farmer / Panda update hit headlines and in April, a second version of Panda hit the web sphere. May saw Panda 2.1 and finally by the end of June, Panda 2.2 update sought to add more teeth to Google’s quest to clean up the search results. All through these tumultuous months in search, Google Dance was the norm for quite a few sites affected by the update. If in 2010, the buzz words were new web indexing system (Caffeine) and long tail queries ( Mayday), this year with Panda on the prowl, the clarion call is all about quality, social assent, solid credibility and user experience.
The road ahead for SEO might seem hard in Panda’s wake for those hit, but the fact remains that focus on quality for all parameters for your website is the only way forward. For those lost their way, down below are ten commandments that can help regain lost ground post Panda.
- Focus on your most important pages. Send solid signals through robot.txt, xml sitemaps, internal link architecture etc.
- Get rid of those non performing pages ( having high bounce rates, duplicate content) or start work on improving them.
- Remember every element of the website should accentuate the user experience.
- Good design does make a point.
- It is all about compelling high value content people can link to and share.
- Ensure you have less or nil intrusive advertising.
- Over optimized pages need to be toned down. It simply serves as a red flag to Google.
- Get links from authority sites to your important pages.
- Fast page loading is an important cog in the wheel. Test repeatedly till you get it right.
- Social Assent matters. Let your website be social media friendly.
Also it makes sense to not put all eggs in one basket. Ensure that you don’t depend on Google alone for traffic.
If you think you are a high quality site that has unfortunately been hit by Panda, you can take recourse to letting Google know here.