For a few years now, the term ‘Google Panda’ has been thrown around and it has left people baffled by what it means. Don’t worry, Google aren’t actually holding onto a massive panda – at least, according to Search Engine Land.

They reported in January that Google Panda was finally going to become an official part of the Core Ranking Signals that Google operates with. Google Panda has been around for some time now, just over five years to be exact. It’s only going to continue growing and improving as time goes on.

This is a big statement within the world of online marketing as it means that one of the major conduits being used to help funnel performance and change dynamics has been included. With Panda always being updated, we’ll likely hear very little about any new changes and improvements that they decide to make to Panda in the future. With it now being part of the official ranking signal – something Google is far less open about its updates and changes to – we’ll likely have to source for ourselves any major changes to the Panda model in the future.

Panda has been very useful for some time as it worked as a good way to start weeding out the spam-centric keyword usage that was beginning to pollute the web. Panda looks for these problems and savages them, deducing that good content which is natural and fair is of fair more value to people than keyword stuffed, pre-sourced content pieces.

This means that the core ranking algorithm may update in real time. Whilst this has been denied at present, it looks like it could become a major feature of the Panda updates and changes in the near future. It should pave the way for significant changes within the world of how searches work and are going to be used. It will also play a major role in the improvement of various factors moving forward for the SEO community. Now, people are going to have to work that fair bit harder to start working against Panda being a part of official ranking signal.

Those who were still clinging on to the old-school methods of SEO and hoping that a return to the “good old days” of loaded keywords should stop waiting for a dead past to return. This stands as the new future for SEO. We can expect to see a minor shift in the way that the web in general looks at and responds to the power of proper marketing now.

Content is going to have go above and beyond the call of duty now, as Panda will look to slice into the part of the internet which is loaded with spam and various other problems. It will make a major difference both today and in the near future, so be sure to keep an eye on Google Panda developments moving forward.

Image courtesy of PiattiLeti on Flickr.

For some people, the world of Google can be a compelling and somewhat exhausting plan to be involved in for marketing purposes. Whilst there is a goldmine of opportunity and development for any business willing to put in the work, many businesses struggle to get beyond some of the initial troubles that can halt your progress.

One such problem and obstacle for many businesses recently is how to optimize their content for Google’s Rich Answer Box.

According to Eric Enge, a writer for the popular Stone Temple Consulting group, the Rich Answer is “any attempt to answer the searcher’s query in search results in a way not requiring click trough to a website.”

When you type in your required query now you will typically find that a short box will appear with an opening line of information. It could be to a Wikipedia page, to an About.com page or it could even be pointing to your website.

The idea here is that with good optimized content you can be seen by Google as the most relevant answer to the question being asked. Naturally, this is a very powerful position to be in from a marketing perspective.

Making your content appear as the optimal choice for Google’s Rich Answer Box, though, takes a fair amount of planning to make sure it all comes across in the right manner.

For example, did you know that simply by looking for the kind of queries people are searching for, you can make yourself the ‘rich’ answer?

Go to the Google Keyword Planner an simply do a basic keyword search – look for questions including words like ‘how’ or ‘why’ and you should be able to pull some very good examples of what people are searching for.

By then building content around this idea and giving people a good idea of what you bring to the table, you make it so much easier for people to see you as the first answer. After all, you don’t have to be the #1 search result for this – you just need to make sure you give the “best” answer to the question.

Another good option to find terms to optimize your content around is just start typing into Google. Put some of your question in and you’ll find Google gives you plenty of inspiration – experiment, and you’ll profit long-term.

Image courtesy of Brafton.