The four Ps of marketing: price, product, promotion and place have been joined by 2 new Ps when it comes to Internet marketing. The Penguin and Panda updates by Google are reshaping the fundamentals of how Internet marketing is done.
Google Panda
In February 2011 Google changed its algorithm with Panda. Panda is designed to lower the rank of low quality websites. These are sites that did not use quality original content. Sites that use duplicate content, spun articles and scraper content were hit very hard by the Panda update.
Panda will affect an entire site rather than a section or a web page. Google continues to roll out versions of this update. There have been multiple updates with two updates in April 2012.
Proper actions caused by Panda update
- Use only high quality original content
- Do not “over optimize” content for keywords
- Focus on increasing trustworthiness of site
- Include site contact info (address, phone)
Google Penguin
At about the same time that Google Panda updates were occurring, Google rolled out its Penguin update (April 24). This is also known as the spam fighting algorithm. Penguin is designed to eliminate spamming techniques that are against their quality guidelines (black hat SEO methods).
- Hidden text, cloaking, keyword stuffing
- Link schemes, paid links
Penguin is designed to act against individual pages rather than the entire website. If you have experienced Penguin, then you were found to be spamming by Google. If you resolve the spam problems, your site’s ranking will generally return in 1-2 months. You can also file a Google reconsideration request.
Expect many versions of the Penguin update to follow.
Proper actions caused by the Penguin update
- Follow Google’s quality guidelines
- Avoid Black hat (Gray Hat) SEO methods.