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Google’s Panda Algorithm Make that big bad bear chew bamboo for you. Michael Cottam [email protected] www.michaelcottam.com @Michael512 2 May 2013

Google's Panda Algorithm

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Page 1: Google's Panda Algorithm

Google’s Panda AlgorithmMake that big bad bear chew bamboo for you.

Michael [email protected]@Michael512

2 May 2013

Page 2: Google's Panda Algorithm

What is Panda?

• Not a bear.

• Meet Navneet Panda, a Google Engineer

Page 3: Google's Panda Algorithm

Seriously, why “Panda”?

• Danny Sullivan called the algo change “Farmer”– Targeting content “farms”

(eHow, article factories, etc.)

• Sorry Danny, that’s BORING

• Navneet Panda was a key engineer on that team

• He’s a machine learning guy

Page 4: Google's Panda Algorithm

Panda is:

• A new ranking factor– NOT a new algorithm on its own– NOT a manual penalty

• Overall idea: use an estimation of “quality” of the content as a ranking factor

• So…does it penalize or boost sites?

Page 5: Google's Panda Algorithm

Dissection of the Panda

• Human quality raters rate pages• Machine learning: what’s common

between pages that suck? – Or that rock?

• Tweak the algo, and see if the new results have better sites in the top spots – Feb 23 2011 Panda 1.0 - affected 12%

of search results

Page 6: Google's Panda Algorithm

2+ Years of algo changes: it’s not all Panda

• Over 500 little updates to the algo/year• Penguin (of course)• Reduction in impact of EMDs• Venice (“local universal” results)• # of results from the same domain• Emanuel Update: penalty for DMCA take-

downs• Knowledge Graph• Parked domains • Search + Your World• Freshness update• Rel=next, rel=prev for pagination

Page 7: Google's Panda Algorithm

What is “quality”?

• It’s definitely NOT:– Content farms– Thin affiliates– Scraper sites– Sites with excessive ads

• Especially above-the-fold

– Made-For-Adsense– Thin price-comparison sites

Page 8: Google's Panda Algorithm

Grrrr….make Panda angry

• http://www.fixya.com/support/t6451689-switch_rival_programmable_crockpot

Page 9: Google's Panda Algorithm

Mmmm…make Panda happyQuality, measured by:

• Low bounce rate• Dwell time on site• Original content (inc. images!)• LOTS of content

• Rich content (maps, video, pics)• Trust signals• Expert/authority signals

Page 10: Google's Panda Algorithm

Google Dance/Panda Dance

• The Bear Dances Slowly

• Each page gets a quality “score”

• Calculations to come up with scores for all pages in the Google index takes WEEKS

• Algo hasn’t changed much, but…

• “Data refresh” comes every month or two

•Last one was supposed to be March 18th

•Panda is getting rolled into the main algo

Page 11: Google's Panda Algorithm

Make that furball chew FOR you

• Rich content• Consolidate similar pages• Consolidate paginated content• Maximize content above the fold• Use original images

Examples:• Best time to visit Tahiti• Corvair at Keels • BMW M1 at Monterey

Page 12: Google's Panda Algorithm

References• Navneet Panda’s resume:

http://www.shmula.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/navneet-panda-google-pandaresume.pdf

• SEOmoz chart of Google algo changes: http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change

• Matt Cutts video: “quality raters don’t affect the algo directly”: http://searchengineland.com/video-google-speaks-about-search-quality-raters-119986

• Google’s public declaration of what makes quality in a page: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

• Google’s reverse image search: http://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en

• Great reference on Panda from .NET Magazine: http://www.netmagazine.com/features/10-things-you-need-know-about-google-panda-and-penguin

• Library of recent Panda update articles from SEL:

• http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-panda-update