How do Google’s Penguin and Panda Updates Affect Your Website Ranking?

Webmasters, website owners, and SEO marketers have valid concerns about Google’s  Panda and Penguin updates.  What do these updates mean and how do they affect your website ranking?

Panda:  Google’s Panda algorithm was implemented in February of 2011 with the purpose of ending “content farms” and phony link-building schemes. This was Google’s attempt to create an algorithm that gives you, the searcher, the freshest and most relevant search results.  The people who were most affected by the Panda update were the SEO firms themselves, although large companies, such as J.C. Penney’s and Overstock have been penalized for engaging in duplicitous link-building schemes.

Penguin:  Penguin was implemented in April of 2012.  This algorithm penalizes and devalues websites that use black hat SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing, phony link-building schemes, and cloaking.  According to a Google representative, [it] ” seeks to penalizes those who  ‘break the rules’ or try to get around Google’s algorithm.”

How do Penguin and Panda affect you? They probably won’t affect you–unless you’re trying to beat the system.  If you’re using authentic keywords, original content, and have legitimate incoming links, itt’s unlikely that your website will lose its ranking

How to lose your Google ranking:

.   Phony link-building schemes

.   Bogus articles (duplicate content)

.   Misleading keywords

.   Misleading pay-per-click ads

.   Malware

So, if you want to win with Google, then play fair, play nice, and don’t lie.  Isn’t that what we learned in kindergarten?

Website Checklist

Take moment and look at your personal website.  Are you making any of these common mistakes?

• Flash in a Pan:  1997 called.  It wants its Flash animation back.  Flash will not show up on many smartphones and tablets, so that cool video that takes up your entire home page looks like a big, empty, black space to some people.   Take out the flash, guys.  Please.
• Men at Work   If you have pages that are “Under Construction,” do us all a favor and take them down.  Don’t keep an unfinished page with an animated .gif file of a cartoon construction worker.  It looks unfinished and ridiculous.
• Lost in Space Is your website easy to navigate?  Your website should be easy for an inexperienced computer user to navigate.  The point of a website is to make it easy for your audience, not to dazzle them with your knowledge of complicated web tricks.
• Digits, Please  Is your phone number prominently displayed on your home page?  This sounds like a no-brainer, but a surprising number of websites should come equipped with a treasure map.   Put your contact number on your home page.  In BIG font.  Period.
• Road to Nowhere Are all of your links and pages working?  Nothing is more frustrating to a user than clicking on a link, photo, or video that is not working.  Fix it or delete it.