Google Panda Is Now Part of Core Ranking Signals

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.