Monday, January 21, 2013

Google algorithm updates affect search

Brooke Snow

As with many companies, Google likes to name its algorithm updates. This is where our friends Panda and Penguin come in. While the names insinuate something cute and cuddly, these updates are anything but. The goal of any algorithm update is to help get the end user good information that matches their needs. The main goal of Panda is to penalize sites with low quality content such as thin and duplicate content. Penguin is more focused on a site’s overall credibility and is aimed at penalizing spam sites, such as ones with unnatural inbound links. Panda and Penguin have endless versions (as of 21 November, we are at Panda update No. 22), and Google updates the algorithm 500 times to 600 times a year. You can see a list of updates by year on SEOmoz.
There are a couple key things that will help you determine if your site was hit.
1. You may have received a warning from Google Webmaster Tools (if you don’t have this set up for your hotel site, you need to). If you received the warning below, then you may have been hit by Penguin.

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