More Pandemonium Courtesy of Google
June 19, 2011
Wading thru search results can be a trying task, particularly the keyword gibberish hits that somehow sneak their way onto the results listings. “The Panda Enigma: An Overview of Major SEO Factors” covers the chaos ensuing with the Web community over Google’s latest overhaul. A brief description of and an argument for the new algorithm per the article:
“Panda is an evolution beyond sole focus on the PageRank model. Together with user metrics and social data, Google can rank websites based on a whole slew of scoring criteria beyond just the link graph and SEO 101 on-page factors (which remain important). Content integrity, usability, even aesthetics are all now potentially in the realm of SEO.”
Who could blame Google for attempting to step up the search game by promoting content over SEO finagling? Actually, there is a line of dissenters thousands deep, namely those whose rankings have been demoted and are pleading suffering as a consequence. The solution, they say, are new tricks to optimize for Panda.
It seems our collective minds may have been erased. So say a site is upgraded to catch and hold Panda’s eye. What happens when Panda goes the way of… oh I don’t know… say AltaVista? AltaVista ranked with eerily similar methods and was a respected search engine in its time. As a matter of fact, in 2007 if “search engine” was typed into Google, AltaVista was the top result. But where is AltaVista now? Begrudgingly, I must tell you to ask Yahoo and then retire to the nearest corner to sulk.
For the Web sites in trouble, perhaps rather than catering to the whims of the hand that feeds you it would be in your best interest merely to make as delicious a dish as possible based on some generally accepted guidelines.
As organic search becomes less viable, what’s the option? Adwords?
Sarah Rogers, June 19, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
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