Google has always been updating their search algorithm to provide their users with the best and most relevant search results. A digital marketing campaign should never be set in stone so that you have the flexibility to adjust your strategy when these updates happen. Recently, new updates on the Google algorithm has been coming in quite fast and many websites are dancing the “Google dance” moving up and down over the last few weeks.
Poor quality websites were hit earlier this year with another Panda update and recently spammy websites were hit with the Penguin update. The problem with the latest update (Penguin) is that it came directly after the last Panda update, so if you had a sudden drop in traffic to your websites, is it due to the spam update (Penguin) or the quality update of (Panda)?
Website analytics
If your website has suffered with rankings in the last couple of weeks and you don’t know which update affected your precious rankings, don’t fear. If you have Google Analytics or any other analytics software tracking your website traffic, have a look at the following dates to determine which update affected your website. On April 19 2012 the latest Panda update was released and on 24 April 2012 the Penguin update. If your website rankings suddenly dropped after 24 April you might have been affected with the Penguin (spam) update.
You don’t like spam? I think the spammers don’t like it either. What about spam on your website? Have you ever, even in the beginning of optimizing your website built a few dodgy links to your site? Have you ever paid for links? Do you have duplicate content on your website or blog? By duplicate content I mean do you have the same content on your website with multiple URL’s or copied content directly from other websites?
Google’s quality guidelines
Whether your website has been hit by the Panda or recent Penguin update, focus and make sure you adhere to the Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to make sure your website won’t get affected to these updates. If you have been affected by these updates, fix and cleanup your website, and with luck, your website will appear in its original position of the search engine result pages (SERP’s).
Don’t get the wrong idea, Google is really not against SEO (Search Engine Optimization), just don’t over optimize your website or fall prey to nasty “Black Hat SEO” methods. These “Black Hat” methods might get you instant results, but will punish you in the long run.
Thanks Anton for clarification. My rankings dropped around 19 April. Will review my site on how I can get those rankings back.
I’m glad you found it useful Robert.
Thanks for the update, I suppose Google just wants content to original and not over optimised.
Yes, I got hit from Google as I have updated new content in my website..:)
My site traffic was stable till the 4th of may and now has dipped to less than half ….. It will be a uphill task from now on.
Yes you are right, My site’s ranking dropped from 24th April, and now I have very few visitors from 24th April. Please help me, how can I recover my site ranking.