Newest Panda Attacks Onsite Optimization

Google will be penalizing websites that overuse onsite optimization tactics. Matt Cutts of Google, announced the new algorithm update during a panel discussion with Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land and Microsoft’s Senior Product Marketing Manager of Bing at SXSW named “Dear Google & Bing: Help Me Rank Better!

Panda Conspiracy
Cutts reveals that over the last few months Google has been working on the new update specifically designed to target sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’d.”

This is the latest effort by Google to reduce the amount of webspam that still permeates the SERPs. Reminiscent of the Panda update, the new update is designed to target and penalize those that are utilize black hat seo tactics and who try to manipulate Google’s search results through less than savory optimization tactics.

Sites that keep to white hat SEO tactics apparently will have nothing to fear (fingers crossed). The new update is designed to address sites that focus only on SEO and not on delivering quality content.

In search results, Google wants to “level the playing field” regarding “all those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO–versus those making great content and great sites,” Schwartz quotes Cutts as saying, in a rough transcription.

“We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect,” the transcript continues.

The new update is expected to be implemented and to begin affecting search results in the upcoming month or next few weeks, although Google had no official comment on the matter.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Google is about to embark on the biggest-ever overhaul of its search system, one that involves semantic search as well as changes to search engine optimization, advertising, and page-ranking results.