My Reflections On Google Panda Update and Matt Cutts’ Message

Google rolled out Panda Update 3.4 last weekend.  Though 1.6% of search queries were effected as Google stated on its tweeter update, the impact has been enormous.  There are many websites were hit badly.  BuildMyRank, a popular link building blog network used by thousands of webmasters, is one of them.  Many of the websites in their network were de-indexed by Google during the Panda rollout.  BuildMyRank is closing down their service.  I personally know that some other blog networks were also affected in various level.  There are many discussions on the Internet about the damage of the latest Panda update.  If Google Panda keeps doing this, you never know when you will be the next victim.

This Panda update  may be a shock to many.  However, if you pay attention to Matt Cutts’ recent comment at SXSW, you would not be surprised.  BTW, Matt is the  head of Google search spam team.

What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO? We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.

Here are my reflections on Google Panda Update and Matt’s message:

1. Do not over optimize your website. You need to follow the good practices of on-page and off-page SEO principles, but do not be tempted by all the magical ways of SEO on the market.  For example, distributing your spun articles to a blog network used to work so well, it is not any more.
2. Fresh quality content is king!  It may be time-consuming to write good content all the time, but it is worthwhile in the long run. You want to build your online business on a solid foundation.  There are tools like Content Curation software and article spinner to help you produce quality content faster.  My philosophy is that no matter what tools you use, there should be some human input (e.g. compiling, comment, sorting, etc) involved.  I do not think autoblogging is a good way to create fresh content.
3. Be very cautious about your link building strategies.  Stay away from linking to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.  Google loves white-hat backlinks.  For information, read The Link Building Strategies That Always Work.

The purpose of a website is to communication with your readers, provide valuable information, build relationship with them and serve them   Online marketing is not  about “get rich quick”.  It is about quality and value.  Give first and you shall receive.  So do it in the right way and Google Panda update will be your friend to help you rank high.