Have you noticed a significant change in your website’s search engine rankings over the last couple of weeks? If you have, then your site, in all likelihood, has been impacted by Panda 4.0, which Google released in May.

Big sites affected by Panda 4.0

Panda 4.0 is the most recent algorithm update that builds on the goal of the original Panda algorithm to get websites that have nothing but low-quality, spammy, or thin content out of Google’s search rankings. While it’s still a little too early to tell exactly how sites have fared with Panda 4.0, the fact that a number of big websites have already been affected is causing concern among average website owners.

Among the big websites that have apparently been affected by the latest Google algorithm update Q&A search engine Ask.com, and Retailmenot.com. Even press release sites have claimed losing a huge percentage of their search rankings. The big ones, like PRWeb, PR Newswire and PRLog, lost about 85% of their search rankings.

Considering that Panda 4.0 is said to be the new ‘softer’ version of the algorithm that is meant to enable small businesses who were previously impacted by Panda continue to recover, small website owners are still naturally alarmed by its impact on bigger and older websites.

Emphasis on high quality content

What small business owners should bear in mind is what Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, said in a 2013 Google Webmaster video:

“[I]f you think you might be affected by Panda, the overriding kind of goal is to try to make sure that you’ve got high-quality content, the sort of content that people really enjoy, that’s compelling, the sort of thing that they’ll love to read that you might see in a magazine or in a book, and that people would refer back to, or send friends to, those sorts of things.”

Simply put, you don’t really have much to worry about as long as your site produces nothing but quality content. The Panda algorithm has already done a very thorough job of making sure sites that implement shady techniques to get ahead in rankings are no longer given any attention by the search engine. The Google landscape has changed, and you should change with it.

Helping websites come up with quality and unique content is a service we provide at Sharper Edge International. If you’re interested in saving and improving your rankings – contact us today! Panda 4.0, after all, is making sure high-quality sites are rewarded with better search engine rankings, and that is something we can definitely help with.