Google Panda Update

Confused about the ever changing algorithms that determine where your law firm website ranks with the search engines? You’re not alone. Let’s talk about Google Panda update.

The field of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is continually changing. What used to improve your ranking in the past may actually hurt your ranking today. One of the biggest changes began in 2011 with the Panda Algorithm, which sought a better way to distinguish good sites from poor ones based on actual human experience.

Prior to this algorithm, many could “cheat” the system by stuffing pages with keywords or by mislabeling pages with title tags or meta descriptions that had nothing to do with the actual content. Panda changed everything because it developed the algorithm based on data from thousands of sites evaluated by real humans. The algorithm replicated the ratings of human evaluators, which means it can deliver search results that will reflect what actual searchers are looking for.

The implementation of this algorithm caused a major upheaval, with more than 20% of the search results reordering. The algorithm ranks search results now based on content. If your site can usefully and accurately answer the problem, question, or desire of the searcher, it will be ranked favorably.

What does this mean for my law firm website?

Regularly updated, useful, relevant content that naturally use your keywords will provide an SEO benefit to your site. Make sure you aren’t just duplicating old content, or using content that is thin, too short, or unhelpful. Having that kind of content will hurt you instead of help you.

Are you worried about the quality of the content on your site? Don’t have time to come up with topics and continually write new content? No problem. It’s one of the services provided in our SEO packages, along with Google Analytics, keyword research, stats tracking and reports. Contact us for a free review of your site and to learn about what we can do for you.

Finally, need more info? Check out these sites for more:

https://moz.com/blog/beat-google-panda

https://moz.com/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world