At a recent networking event the owner of a law firm pulled me aside to ask a few SEO related questions. His first question was, “Can you tell if my website is infected with the Google Panda?” I wanted to burst out laughing and hang my head in shame at the same time. Don’t get me wrong; I am not laughing at the person or the question, but the fact that changes in the Google ranking algorithm have trickled down to main street America.
It’s easy to misinterpret all the SEO mumbo-jumbo, especially when the average reader scans the news headlines and sees sensationalized headlines like “Panda Update Hits Websites Hard” or “Google Panda Victim.” And good luck (website owner) if you search online for “Google Panda.”
For clarification, Panda is an update to the formula Google uses to rank websites in the search results. There was a negative impact to websites the engaged in overly aggressive Optimization tactics that violate the guidelines established by Google. While every website is impacted in Google Search by this update, most websites were not effected negatively. None of our clients felt the bite of the Google Panda!
Here is a great infographic that reviews the impact of Panda, one year latter
.