Google’s Panda update has scared a lot of people away from SEO. In fact, I have heard multiple “SEO Experts” say that it has ruined their ability to get their websites ranked in the top 10.
The funny thing is that nearly 100% of my rankings, encompassing close to 100 websites I have optimized for the search engines, have actually INCREASED in rank.
The truth of the matter is that all the Panda update did was help get rid of a lot of the riffraff “black hat” SEO marketers. If your rankings are based upon trying to cheat the system rather than add quality to it, of course you are eventually going to get found out and slapped for it.
Most notably Google’s update targeted duplicate content. Meaning if you are trying to game the system by posting the exact same content all over the place in order to get more backlinks, or if you have signed up for a service that automatically posts content to your website or blog so Google sees a lot of activity and content; you were probably slapped pretty hard.
Obviously if you were running a content business, you would want as much unique, relevant, quality content as possible. Sure much of the stuff may be the same context written in different words, but that’s great because it’s different strokes for different folks.
However, what you wouldn’t want is the top 10 results all being carbon copies of the exact same thing!
Well, Google is no different and it updates it’s algorithms constantly trying to weed out the duplicates. In fact it had over 400 algorithm updates just last year alone!
So the moral of the story is, whenever you are going to do something to attempt to increase your rankings, ask yourself one question and you will always come out smelling like roses in the long run.
“Does this add value to the Internet Community?“
Stay Positive, Stay Focused!
Robert