Google Update Zoo : Panda - Penguin

Presented by:Bill Hartzer

Overview• What is Google Panda?

– Google Panda History

• Were You Hit by Panda?– Recovering from Panda

• Google Panda Vs. Penguin

• What is Google Penguin?– Google Penguin History

• Were You Hit by Penguin?– Recovering from Penguin

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

What is Google Panda?• Ranking factor added to the Google algorithm

• Filter designed to identify ‘low quality pages’.

• Provides better rankings for high-quality sites

• Doesn't run continuously due to analysis processing

• Updates every 4 to 7 weeks

• Named after Google engineer Navneet Panda

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

How Google Panda Was Developed

• Google Engineer came up with questions.• Sent questions to human quality testers who rated sites

– Rated based on quality, design, trustworthiness, speed, and whether or not they would return to site

– Google came up with definition of “low quality”• Launched Personal Chrome Site Blocker extension earlier.

– Allowed users to specify sites they want blocked from search results

• Compared data from both sources (Raters and Chrome Blocker), and had 84 percent overlap, indicating on right track

• Came up with Classifier to indicate Low Quality vs. High Quality Sites, to be used mathematically in Google Panda.

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Google Panda History• Rolled Out to US sites around February 24, 2011

– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html

• Rolled out to Globally to all English language Users around April 11, 2011– Also began to roll out data from sites that users block

• Latest update Panda #20 — September 27, 2012- 2.4% of queries affected, overlapped EMD update

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Google Panda Update History• Panda/Farmer — February 23, 2011

• Panda 2.0 — April 11, 2011• Panda 2.1 — May 9, 2011• Panda 2.2 — June 21, 2011• Panda 2.3 — July 23, 2011• Panda Goes Global (2.4) — August 12, 2011• Panda 2.5 — September 28, 2011• Panda "Flux" — October 5, 2011• Panda 3.1 — November 18, 2011• Panda 3.2 — January 18, 2012• Panda 3.3 — February 27, 2012• Panda 3.4 — March 23, 2012• Panda 3.5 — April 19, 2012• Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012• Panda 3.7 — June 8, 2012• Panda 3.8 — June 25, 2012• Panda 3.9 — July 24, 2012• Panda 3.9.1 — August 20, 2012• Panda 3.9.2 — September 18, 2012• Panda #20 — September 27, 2012

See the Google Algorithm Change History:http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-

change

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Were You Hit by Panda?

• Look at Web Analytics• Sites affected had traffic loss starting in February, 2011.• Google Analytics for your site (Web Trends, Omniture,

etc.)• Google Trends for any site (http://trends.google.com)

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Recovering from Panda• Make sure all content on site is “high quality”

• Review Google’s List: 23 Questions to assess quality– http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-

quality.html

• Identify and remove least-visited pageson site via your web analytics

• Take out the trash, so to speak.

• Prevent Pogosticking from SERPs.

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Panda vs. Penguin• Panda focuses on sites providing a bad user experience

– Sites with low quality content

• Penguin focuses on spamdexing and link bombing.

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

What is Google Penguin?

• Google: “algorithm change targeted at webspam.”– http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-

reward-high-quality.html

• Goal is to “decrease rankings for sites that violate Google’s Quality Guidelines”.– http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?

hl=en&answer=35769#3

• Examples:– Keyword Stuffing, Over Optimization– Unusual linking patterns (outgoing links)

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Google Penguin History

• First reported 4/24/2012

• Updated May 25, 2012 (Penguin 1.1)

• Penguin #3 — October 5, 2012- impacted 0.3 percent of queries

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Were You Hit by Penguin?

• Panda April 19, Penguin April 24, Panda refresh 4/27– Search Engine Journal: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/penguin-or-

panda-how-to-determine-which-google-algorithm-update-impacted-your-website/43751/

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Recovering from Penguin

• Perform a full SEO Audit of web site– Identify and fix problem areas on site that violate

Google guidelines (keyword stuffing, over optimization, etc.)

• Review Google Webmaster Tools for messages, suggestions

• Perform full link analysis of site– Download links from Majestic SEO, SEOMoz Open

Site Explorer, a hrefs, etc.– Review anchor text, clean up links to site

• Work on Authority, Trust of your site

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog

Thank YouBill Hartzer

Director of Search Engine OptimizationStanding Dog

www.StandingDog.comTwitter: @StandingDog

Facebook: Facebook.com/standingdog

Personal Blog: www.BillHartzer.comTwitter: @Bhartzer

Facebook: Facebook.com/bhartzer

Bill Hartzer, Director of SEOTwitter: @standingdog and

@bhartzerFacebook:

Facebook.com/StandingDog