It’s been a fortnight (two weeks) since the Panda was unleashed in the UK. As predicated, there was and still is a lot of wailing and bemoaning from sites that have been hit hardest by the newest Google algorithm update.
After the significant weeding out of spammy, low-quality content sites from the SERPs with Panda, we are seeing exactly what we expected. We are witnessing the same results we saw in the Panda US release; good quality sites are rising in rankings, while poor sites are dropping. The cream really does rise to the top!
Of course it may take more than a few weeks for the SERPs to stabilize, and some legitimate sites have been experienced a drop in ranking as well but overall it seems to have been implemented more smoothly in the UK than it was in the US.
For a very long time the search results were inundated with spammy or useless result, causing many not able to find what they were searching for. It was also leading to a move away from search engines to social search and search outsourcing using twitter etc. Google was losing traction.
The follow-up question being asked by many SEOs is: “How do I game the SERPs, post-Panda?” My answer is quite simple: “Don’t.” The Panda update is the latest move by Google to return search results to a more organic web. Google is looking for clean sites with good content, that provide a useful user experience…and they are becoming exceedingly efficient at it.