The effects of major Google algorithm updates
The effects of major Google algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda have turned website owners into action, making them put in efforts to optimize their websites and associated SEO tactics. Today, we all know how effective
SEO works. You develop a great
website, design it for the target audience, publish
high-quality content, build natural backlinks, optimize it for keywords and execute other on-page optimization to enable easy crawling and indexing. But, that was not how things were prior to the Google updates we mentioned before. Website owners and SEO gurus resorted to ‘SEO shortcuts’ that, on one hand, provided them with excellent results. But on the other hand, made the websites succumb to these important updates. The SEO game has changed for the good and this post will help you understand it more deeply.
What did Google Panda Update Bring to the table?
Back in February 2011,
Google released the Panda update to tackle the problem of thin content being published by websites. The lack of valuable content and presenting users with way too many ads made providing great user experience a challenge. Panda update hit such low-quality sites (often known as ‘content farms’) that relied on spamming and link exchanges. Here’s a list of popular websites that were hard hit by Google Panda update –
Domain | Visibility Index Loss | SISTRIX (percentage loss) |
wisegeek.com | 93.3622 | -77% |
ezinearticles.com | 58.4273 | -90% |
suite101.com | 50.755 | -94% |
hubpages.com | 47.7632 | -87% |
yourdictionary.com | 39.5044 | -74% |
brothersoft.com | 37.6418 | -66% |
buzzle.com | 36.7005 | -85% |
associatedcontent.com | 35.7198 | -93% |
freedownloadscenter.com | 27.2522 | -90% |
essortment.com | 23.4146 | -91% |
fixya.com | 22.9456 | -80% |
americantowns.com | 22.6942 | -91% |
lovetoknow.com | 21.4714 | -83% |
articlesbase.com | 18.7999 | -94% |
howtodothings.com | 17.8122 | -84% |
mahalo.com | 17.2586 | -84% |
automotive.com | 16.9008 | -71% |
business.com | 16.104 | -93% |
doityourself.com | 15.9952 | -77% |
merchantcircle.com | 15.7573 | -85% |
thefind.com | 15.6825 | -83% |
wrongdiagnosis.com | 15.5617 | -73% |
findarticles.com | 15.2418 | -90% |
faqs.org | 15.0573 | -91% |
tradekey.com | 15.0415 | -89% |
(Source – Search Engine Land) This turned the attention of website owners, bloggers, marketers, and content creators towards providing valuable content to the users. Google Panda aimed at making website owners understand the value of creating the best user experience for the visitors. Google wants genuine engagement on your website. If that’s not happening, the reason could be the low-quality content that users might have to put up with. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not acceptable, at least, in the eyes of Google Panda.
How did Google Penguin Changed SEO forever?
Google Penguin was a blow below the belt to sites that tried to trick Google’s existing system by creating unnatural backlinks. Backlink is a signal Google uses to know how respected your website is in the community. The more backlinks you have, the higher the trust community has on your website. But, we are not talking about low-quality websites linking to your content. Google Penguin update cares about backlinks as long as you get them from authoritative websites. That’s right. Link Manipulation can now be considered as a taboo.
Over to You
Google algorithm updates can be annoying as they come so frequently. But, they are there to make sure the Internet stays a level playing field where all businesses and content creators can compete for the user attention. Let us know how these updates affected your websites. Since you are here, don’t forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter that brings you all the latest updates from the world of digital marketing.