Panda Recovery Strategies and How to Improve Your Site’s Quality Score
In our previous article, we explored the Panda Algorithm and the reason behind Google’s implementation of this update. Let’s continue with this conversation.
Effects of Panda on Your Website
Each website has a “Quality Score” assigned by Google. Sites that saw a sudden, massive traffic drop were probably hit without them knowing it but even new sites can also be affected by Panda, making it really hard to rank. A lot of older sites are losing rankings and don’t know why.
Google is out to reward “high quality sites” and penalize sites with a poor quality score. If Google thinks that your website is not adding value, your quality score drops. If Google thinks your site is outdated, it will be harder to rank. If you’re selling products online, it’s important to have a high quality score. Most eCommerce sites got hit because of the seemingly duplicate content of similar products presented in different pages. Unless changes are done to your site, it will remain penalized. Google is not only after your site, it’s also after your business model.
The Panda Equation and your Website’s Quality Score
So how will you know your ranking if your Quality Score is hidden from you as a webmaster? Here’s a formula that you can use to determine your ranking:
Panda Quality Score / 100 x old ranking factors = your rank
The equation used to determine your Panda Quality Score is:
[Static Elements] x [Quality Checks] x [User Experience] = Panda Quality Score
This equation tells us that there are 3 elements that Google uses to determine your website’s score. These elements can be improved upon to raise your quality score and restore your ranking as well.
Static Elements – make sure the content and information in each element is unique:
- Privacy Policy
- Contact Page – must include: valid author or multiple authors, mailing address, email address, phone number, author tags, shipping and warranty information (for ecommerce sites)
- About Us
- Terms of Service
- Disclosure of Possible of Compensation (for affiliate or review sites)
Quality Checks – Check the quality of your coding. Broken, obsolete, deprecated, or outdated code, hidden text, overlapping text, and exploding images should be fixed.
User Experience – Improving user experience is now a major element to improving your site’s ranking. Stats on bounce rate, user engagement, and page depth or how deep visitors go into the site give Google an idea how involved a visitor is when they visit your site. The longer they stay on your site, the better for your website’s score.
Website owners need to evaluate their sites regularly to assess whether they have issues related to these three elements. Addressing these issues promptly will help keep their site in check and hopefully stay in Google’s good graces.
Note: Many of the articles on this site include affiliate links that may earn us a commission if you decide to buy the recommended product.
