Search marketing: How has Google's Panda algorithm update altered the industry?

"The panda algorithm update, in a nutshell, was about penalising websites with low quality content - and rewarding those with high-quality content. That means that if you have a site with 100,000+ indexed pages of average content - it's likely that it won't be ranking as highly right now as it was a year to 18-months ago. The only real way to fix this is to have a clean-up."

"SEO used to be a case of the more content and pages you had, the more keyword opportunities and traffic you will have. This really isn't true anymore. So my recommendation would be to review those pages which aren't generating any traffic and either rewrite them in to higher quality content, or delete and redirect them onto relevant pages within your site."

"Likewise, when link building, don't over-optimise anchor text. If you have 90% of your links to a page using a competitive keyword, it's very unlikely to be a natural profile and it's a clear sign to Google. Mix it up, keep it branded - and again, maybe it's time for a clean-up - if you've got a spammy link profile, it's possible your effort will be best spent in removing low-quality links, as opposed to building higher quality links."

The Panda update penalizes sites with low-quality or thin content and rewards sites with high-quality content. Large sites with many average pages can see drops in rankings and should audit pages that generate no traffic. Non-performing pages should be rewritten to higher quality or deleted and redirected to relevant pages. SEO is no longer a volume game; quality matters more than sheer page count. Link building should avoid over-optimised anchor text and maintain branded, varied anchors. Cleaning up spammy link profiles and removing low-quality links can be as important as building high-quality links. Authorship signals indicate writer quality.

Read at The Drum