A lot of sites have recently shown a significant drop in organic traffic, and some of them have fallen out of search engine rankings at all. This is not surprising, since Google announced just another Google Panda 4.1 algorithm update a month ago.
For ordinary people, panda is a cute animal that causes only positive emotions. And for SEO experts, it is a pain in the neck. As a reminder, Panda is a Google algorithm filter released in 2011 aiming to detect and fight low quality content. Pierre Far announced, that Google had added some new signals to help updated Panda define the low-quality content more precisely. This can lead to the fact, that new sites with good content will be able to challenge the giants in the search results. As for English-speaking segment, these innovations affected medical information websites, game and news portals. A more accurate list of such web resources can be seen here. Sites with non-unique content are also at risk, including: websites of poems, songs, movies, music, unlicensed software, etc.
Having analyzed portals that were affected by the new algorithm Google Panda 4.1, was identified the main factors, due to which the websites were caught up by the filter.
So, why your website can be punished by Google Panda 4.1?
- Borrowed content;
- Small amount of content on the page (100 words);
- Text in images, which leads to the lack of text on the page;
- Blank pages in the index;
- No redirects
- Ignoring the "Guidelines for Webmasters."
If your website has lost ranking positions during the last month, it is likely, that the low-quality content is a main reason for it. In this case, we recommend you using Matt Cutts' tips for improving the text content on the site.
We also have prepared some simple, but very useful advice to help you to avoid Google Panda 4.1 filter:
- add useful articles to the site on a regular basis;
- write unique descriptions of the goods (for people, not robots. Descriptions should contain not less, than 1000-1500 characters);
If you follow the above-mentioned tips, you can not be afraid of any filter, including Google Panda. You can read in one of our next articles a more detailed examination of this issue, as well as the analysis of errors that could cause your site to be filtered.
P.S.: And while we were investigating the situation with Google Panda 4.1 filter updating, Google was on the job and officially launched the new Penguin 3.0 algorithm. In our following blogs we will tell you about the sites, caught up by this filter, and what the new Penguin 3.0 algorithm can punish your website for. Follow our updates and be careful with the Google 'zoo'.