Google's Latest Ranking Factors – 1 Year After Panda
3 days after the anniversary of the Google Panda Update—G’s first algorithm targeting poor content—the search giant announces its latest algo update: Panda 3.3.
Important Google Updates
There are over 40 improvements in the latest Panda update, most noteable are:
Link Evaluation
Google says, “We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years.”
What this means?
If you’re still trading links, or participating in link building practices for the sole purpose of building PageRank and influencing Google’s search results, you’re wasting your time and money.
Improved Local Results
Google says, “We launched a new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably.”
What this means?
If you’re a local agent or brokerage, Google is helping you compete agains the big guys (Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, etc).
Spam Update
Google says, “We found and fixed some weaknesses in our spam protections.”
What this means?
If you’re still trying to spam Google—you might not be getting a penalty—but whatever you’re doing probably isn’t helping.
What’s Panda?
Not sure what the Panda update was? Here’s an infographic to help you understand what Google is doing:
Michael Borger
Posted at 18:47h, 27 FebruaryGreat update, Justin, and nice infographic. Most people don’t understand Panda beyond a basic “Stick to good content” direction. Trading links, which can be done for just a few dollars, was a cheap way to game the system. While I admittedly don’t know enough about Panda to give it a full pass, I do appreciate its purpose of promoting local, quality content sites.
ZombieProphet
Posted at 00:37h, 28 FebruaryGoogle says, “We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years.”
What this means?If you’re still trading links, or participating in link building practices for the sole purpose of building PageRank and influencing Google’s search results, you’re wasting your time and money.
You have absolutely no idea what link metric they are now ignoring, hence your post there is just a guess and should be stated as such.
Justin Britt
Posted at 15:10h, 29 FebruaryAloha ZombieProphet, you are correct. I–nor anybody else–“have absolutely no idea what link metric they are now ignoring.” The thing is, I didn’t state that I know what the link metric is. However, I am 100% positive in the statement that I did make, “If you’re still trading links, or participating in link building practices for the sole purpose of building PageRank and influencing Google’s search results, you’re wasting your time and money.” I’m not saying that these practices don’t work, I know they do because I see these practices still beating me in the SERPs. However, it will be short lived as Google is committed to getting rid of this spam from it’s index.
Georgia Homes
Posted at 09:12h, 28 February‘Google says, “We launched a new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably.”
What this means?If you’re a local agent or brokerage, Google is helping you compete agains the big guys (Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, etc).’That’s great in theory, but I haven’t seen that to be the case in reality.
Justin Britt
Posted at 15:15h, 29 FebruaryInteresting. I did do a search for “Fulton County real estate agents” and did not see any local results.
In Hawaii, the local results are fairly strong.