Back in 2016, we wrote a blog about Penguin, Google’s link evaluator. Now, we’d like to focus on Panda – and aside from their namesakes’ retweet-worthy levels of cuteness, these are two creatures of a different color.
Panda’s been monitoring your content and modifying your search ranking accordingly since 2011. Google’s increasingly frequent updates to the algorithm – six between January and May 2017, according to GSQi – mean it’s only getting smarter and more selective. So, what can you do to please Panda?
- Take a good, hard look at your website. Is it fully functional? Filled with quality content? Easy to use?
- Tone it down. Panda can smell aggressive advertising from a mile away, and doesn’t like seeing users pestered by persistence.
- Beef it up. When it comes to content, thin is not in; low quality content can result in a serious penalty. Focus on providing your users with relevant, original content.
- Be a query master. Create content to match user queries, and don’t get hung up on length. Resorting to spammy text to hit 300 words is not Panda-approved – what’s important is that your final answer is effective.
- Service that SEO. While technical SEO doesn’t have a direct impact on Panda, any issues can negatively affect UX – so ensure that tech glitches or performance issues are promptly sorted.
Remember to keep your site tight at all times (with our help, if needed). Just ’cause you can’t see Panda, doesn’t mean it’s not there!
