When your website faces the Google Panda penalty, you lose ground in vying for the enormous Internet customer base to your rivals. The Google Panda algorithm update was implemented to encourage the sites to optimize their content and structure for the benefit of the users and weed out bad content. Many websites report a substantial loss of traffic, visibility, and conversion after the release of Panda updates. If your business is on the brink of punitive actions or already suffered the Panda slap, you should prioritize on getting it back to normal as soon as possible. This guide will be a Panda recovery guide for your embroiled business.
About the Panda Penalty
It is a domain-level penalty. This means your entire domain will be penalized for bad content. Authoritative sites are more trusted. On-site SEO becomes very significant. Post quality is the principal ranking factor now. Also, niche-based websites are superior to generic sites.
The Panda update will affect sites with the following characteristics:
• sites with low-quality/duplicate content
• sites which act as content farms
• sites with unsuitable SEO structure
• webpages that have excessive advertisements
• pages having typos and poor grammar
• webpages that have a slow load time and over-optimization
Panda Recovery Process
Let’s focus on the steps that can turn the losses from the penalty around.
Step 1 – Verify, which algorithm updates hurt your business
Confirm which update altered the website’s traffic and its impact. A site could take a blow from one update, yet benefit from another data refresh then get hit again. Pinpointing which update of Panda hit you can help you get to the root of the problem. Start checking the Google Webmaster Tools to distinguish what the problem is. You can then start eliminating and disavowing any suspicious backlinks. Need an proper audit on your website backlinks profile? Contact us.
Step 2 – Scrutinize the site for all possible cause
A recovery plan must have an overall understanding of the whole situation. Don’t rush to conclusions.
Step 3 – Remove Low-Quality/Duplicate Content
Usually, the most common cause for a Google Panda ban is when you’ve got low-quality content on your site. These pages add no value to the user or don’t contain much information. Therefore, they should not rank higher for that particular keyword. To check if this might be influencing your site, perform a site search.
Useless duplicate content is a significant offender for causing Panda penalties. External examples can be when many domains show similar content. You can get rid of external duplicate content by hiring copywriters to write 500 words unique to per page. If you have a large number of pages, you can pull data from related databases to create unique content. A URL-based duplicate content can be an example of internal duplicate content. Get rid of those as well.
Step 4 – Keep a Low Ad to Content Ratio and faster loading speed
Keep your page little on ads until you are clear of the Panda danger zone. Long banner ads are strongly discouraged. Faster page loading speeds can give your page a ranking boost. Keep the page loading speed below 2 seconds. Don’t use too many embedded widgets.
Step 5 – Keep a clean design and don’t over-optimize
Implement a clean site design for better rankings. Don’t use too many clashing colors and allow ample white space and easy navigation options. Make your site look professional. Over-optimization will not help your cause with recovering from panda. Don’t put too many keywords in your title tags.
Step 6 – Clear Site Architecture
Cleaner site architecture will help with site indexation. Google will notice the changes faster, and recovery will speed up. Also, you’ll get more points from consumers. Keep the total number of links below 100 and your site as flat as possible. Get rid of broken links.
Step 7 – Grammar & Spelling
Check your content with a spell-checker to improve grammar and spelling errors. Improve on your thin materials. Use engaging title tags and rich snippets in improving your click through rate.
Step 8 – Fix everything and wait
After doing everything you can, just have patience and wait for the next refresh. Your site will be back up in no time at all!
