Google Panda Update - Part 2

By Pierre Morel

Continued from Part 1

4) Avoid using auto generated content. Auto generated information is justified as not providing quality content, so by incorporating such things will harm your chances of success. This refers to roundups or comparison pages unfortunately, purely because they do not include original content.

5) Use fresh content. Although the search engine have always favoured new and updated pages, this is now even more so the case. The search engines will give preference to recent pages, so whilst it may be a time-consuming task it is certainly worth updating your site frequently, then monitoring your progress in analysis tools such as Check My Positions to see if your performance improves.

6) Do not use scraped content. Scraped content is in the same league as duplicate content, and should be avoided if you are looking for online exposure to the search engines. As you may have seen for yourself, articles that have been spun very rarely make for enjoyable reading and this is something that the algorithm can now pick up so make sure you take the time to correctly word any content that will be associated with you and your business. Use a keyword ranking tool to analyse the efficient use of your keywords.

7) Use affiliate links and adverts with care. Too many affiliate links will not be in your favour so think about reducing the amount you have and make them nofollow if possible. Your web visitors and search engines alike will not want to be bombarded with adverts on your pages as it will distract them from the true intention of your website and instead only keep the ones that actually make you money!

8) Avoid duplicate templates. As part 1 of this article mentions, duplicate content should be avoided completely and this also refers to everything visible on your pages. Keep clear of reusing the same template blocks of text, including the links attached to them, keeping only the most necessary template information.

9) Avoid having too many outbound links with keywords. Having too many outbound links is bad enough, but when they include keywords in the anchor text it is hugely damaging. This will cause the search engines to presume that these links are not natural and are the result of a link exchange. If you accept guest posts on your site, be aware that many authors will use keywords in their links and in their byline, so try and keep the anchor text of your outbound links as diverse as possible.

10) Ensure your website is easy to navigate. Both web users and search engine bots like a clean navigation structure, and if you want to improve your site performance overall you will need to provide this requirement as standard.

The panda update has certainly stirred things up a little, but the intention of the update is certainly preferable. In order to make sure you are making the correct changes to your SEO to work with the updated algorithms you will need to continually monitor and analyse your website performance with services like Check My Positions, allowing you to adjust your SEO campaign where necessary and steer you in the direction of success.

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