Google explains how to recover from Google Panda

19 May 2011

In a post last week on the Google Webmaster Central Blog, Amit Singhal provided a list of questions that site owners (who have been adversely affected by the Panda update) should ask themselves about their website's content.

He explained that "the aim of the list is to provide additional guidance on how Google searches for high-quality sites." He re-states that Google's "site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find high-quality sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content."

The following list provided by Google contains questions that can be used to assess the quality of a page or an article and he goes on to explain that these are the sorts of questions which the Google Search team ask themselves as they write algorithms aimed at detecting poor quality.

• 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?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

Amit Singhal explains that Google are constantly being contacted by users seeking guidance on how to improve search engine rankings for their sites. He encourages them to use the questions above in order to create high quality content for their websites rather than attempting to optimise their sites for each change in the search algorithm.

The last piece of advice offered is that low quality content in one area of a website can impact the search rankings of the entire site, so site owners are encouraged to remove the low-quality areas or improve the content in order to make them more useful for web users.