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Noticed a change in your rankings on Google over the last few days?

Google has confirmed that they have made a “Core Ranking algorithm” update but does not include a Panda update at the same time.

John Mueller confirmed the update here and Gary Illyes confirmed it here

What does this mean ?

It is not often that Google confirms a core update making this one a bit of a big deal in itself. Lots of people have been expecting a Penguin update that has been delayed but this wasn’t it.

Whats a Penguin?

Penguin is an update first rolled out in April 2014. The idea of Penguin was to target “unnatural” links. That is links that some sites have obtained for the sole purpose of ranking higher.

Links are kinda like a vote for the content on your site. A link from a well regarded site, blog etc would be looked on very favourable and pass on more link “juice”. But it was also found fairly quickly that a large number of links from lower quality sites and blogs, even comments, could help boost the rankings of a website.

The penguin update was implemented to help weed out such link factories and encourage developing good content for users and to grow natural links to that good quality content.

What’s a Panda ?

Panda first debuted in February 2011 and is specifically about on-site content. The idea is to look at the content of the site, not the links to the site, but the information you provide for your visitors.

The information needs to be high quality, some of the questions Google gets developers of websites to ask give an idea of their focus here.

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

If your website has been adversely affected by the latest algorithm update from Google and you need help getting your site back up higher give me a call –1300 737 601 – or reach out via our contact page[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]