Panda 2.2: Google’s Algorithm Implemented Again for Summertime

Google's Panda 2.2

By now most SEOs and webmasters have all seen or felt the effects of Google’s initial Panda algorithm that greatly targeted minimizing the rankings of what they thought to be poor-quality sites.  A Google spokesperson writes: “we’re continuing to iterate on our Panda algorithm as part of our commitment to returning high-quality sites to Google users. This most recent update is one of the roughly 500 changes we make to our ranking algorithms each year.”

Although Google has not officially announced that the algorithm changes are live there is buzz around the net that the changes have taken place.  For white-hat SEO operations such as Gaveltek, our clients have continued to see positive gains as we have always stressed that our content be original and high-quality.

Matt Cutts of Google said that a new iteration of the Panda update would take place.  This was mentioned some weeks ago and was verified by Matt that the updates had been approved.  The new update, dubbed Panda 2.2 by the search industry, is expected to address the issues Google has with poor content.  For more ethical SEO firms and website owners who favor quality over duplication and unoriginality, the changes come as welcome as the search results often produce scraped content that ranks higher than the original.

For sites that have high quality content as determined by Google, the Panda 2.2 update should have a very small impact on their rankings, if any.  For sites that have been impacted negatively the issues of their content should be addressed.  Web owners should not, however, forget that content is just one of the many signals that Google uses to rank you.  Consider making other changes in other areas that may help you to improve your rankings if you have been negatively affected by these changes.