About SEO and SE Algorithms—Panda and Penguin

Nowadays, search engine (SE) algorithms allow for more specific and accurate search results, meaning that the days of spam and empty web pages containing little more than incoherent text are done. Thanks to Google’s latest Panda and Penguin updates, the incidences of these black hat practices have dramatically decreased.

Now, business owners may think that this news doesn’t concern them, but they should remember that Google’s Panda and Penguin are the ones that regulate the amount of visits or ‘hits’ that their websites regularly receive. Long story short: businesses that fail to meet Panda’s and Penguin’s standards can expect to receive lower web traffic and, as a consequence, generate fewer online sales.

 Perhaps the two search engine algorithms should be given a closer look. Panda was launched in February, 2011 as a way for Google to uncover and penalize websites that have “low quality” content. This was a response to a particularly dubious internet marketing practice called ‘content spamming’, which boosts a website’s ranking on Google by producing as many articles and blog posts as possible.

Google Penguin, meanwhile, was launched on April, 2012 to also help mitigate this problem, only this time it was also focused on similarly dubious marketing practices like ‘link farming’ (hoarding as many links as possible to boost online ranks, regardless of their relevance).  Penguin also encouraged websites to engage in ‘white hat SEO’, a catchall term for marketing practices that boost a website’s rankings in a fair manner.