If you happened not to know what the Google Panda updated search algorithm is, you really should. Google's Panda Update is a filter originally introduced in February 2011 meant to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google's top search.
Most online businesses are having to make adjustments to achieve the desired search rankings under the new algorithm, and your approach to building links has to change as well. No longer do the old rules of link building apply, where you could purchase links to your site. Those will only hurt your ranking. A well defined link-bulding plan is your best option now.
Here are some guidelines to build links post Panda:
Check Your Site First
The goal of the Panda update is to improve the quality of content on the Web, thus improving the quality of Google’s search results. Sites that engage in content farming or otherwise low-quality content creation have been the primary targets, and the updated algorithm was designed to punish those sites by significantly lowering their search rankings. Have lots of pages with duplicate content is one of the worst things you can do (Ex. having pages for each state saying you do business in that state but that has mostly the same content except for the different state names and a few other words).
The way that this effects link building going forward is that businesses must be very careful about whom they share and receive links. Linking to and from sites that Google has deemed as having a low quality content is a virtual death sentence. Before starting any new link building initiatives, businesses and website owners must ensure that their sites do not fall into this category.
A professional design is imperative, as are acceptable page load speeds and signals of trust that provide clear indications to users and other businesses that your business website is a reputable destination. Most important, of course, and the whole reason behind Panda, is the ability to produce quality content that is useful, accurate, authoritative, current and free of grammatical and spelling errors.
In our next article, we will look at more guidlines for Panda.
