Google has definitely been keeping both themselves and webmasters busy. Only a matter of days apart, Google introduced two algorithm updates. The first algorithm change came over the weekend; a refresh of the Payday Loans update originally introduced in June of 2013. The original update targeted especially SPAMMY queries. Sites optimized via these inlinks took a very hard hit, albeit the segment a rather narrow one. This weekend’s update is an extension of that and looks to be targeting other SPAMMY anchor text, though results are still being gathered.
The bigger news came on May 20th, 2014, with the confirmation of the rolling out of Panda 4.0. Since being introduced in February of 2011, Panda has been frustrating many webmasters. Originally affected 12% of all search queries, the Panda algorithm has been updated at least 25 times since its introduction; all minor updates (or refreshes as Google likes to call them). This last one though, seemed to cause a bit of a disturbance.
The May 20th announcement by Matt Cutts indicates that Panda 4.0 is more than just another refresh and actually a significant change to the algorithm. Panda 4.0 will have an impact on approximately 7.5% of English-language search queries. It is likely that this adjustment will become a part of the base algorithm going forward and will be the stepping stone in which all other refreshes extend from, much like the original 2011 update.
Panda was initially in response to the amount of sites linked from link farms that were ranking well in the SERPs. Since then it has extended to target websites with thin or less than useful content. Panda aims at reducing the number of low quality pages that are all too common in the engine’s search results. The more liable the system is to being manipulated, the more damaging it is to Google’s flagship product.
Webmasters don’t have all the answers yet as the affects are still being evaluated. Expect rankings and positions to be volatile in the coming days, much as they were in the days directly before the update. Rollouts are generally done over a period of time, so if your site wasn’t affected in the past two days, it doesn’t mean you’re in the clear just yet.
Going forward, it doesn’t look like Google is done yet either. While this update affected a number of sites with less than impressive on page content (eBay was a big loser in this category) Google doesn’t seem to have yet solved the issue of webmasters scraping content.
Scraping content is the task of pulling content from high ranking, already successful pages and incorporating it into your own website. There is not enough content to be caught by duplicate content filters, but enough to seem authoritative and rank well. The issue with this black-hat SEO strategy is that is currently works well and many of these sites outrank websites that create and curate original content. Google has made steps to weed these sites out, but this is expected to be an integral part of future refreshes.
Penguin 2.0 should also be expected in the coming months, as it’s been nearly a year since its release without any major updates.
