Google Panda 3.3

Over the past month Google has rolled out their newest Panda update.

What is Panda 3.3?

Panda 3.3 is the latest version of Google’s algorithm, that targets unnatural link profiles. It has caused a loss of ranking for many sites due to decreased value of the inbound links pointing to their site. Inbound links have been devalued due to a change in the way Google assesses inbound links.

Here’s a link to what Google has to say: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/02/search-quality-highlights-40-changes.html

• Place more emphasis on social media, and inbound links from social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, and Google+)
• Onsite content matching with the source page content of that link
• Content on source page in order to determine relevance of outbound link

Why Your Site Was Hit

You were hit because Google looks for patterns, and your sit did not fit their pattern for natural linking. Too many of your inbound links are exact-match anchor text links. Exact-match anchor text links have online gambling always carried a large weight ranking sites, with the new update that weight has significantly decreased. Google has also imposed a threshold of “too many” exact match anchor text links.

• Your site may have too many brand-name anchors. Anchor text that is brand name or variations of it are signals to Google of a natural link profile.
• Natural-looking link profile also includes what is called “junk” anchor, LSI anchor text, and naked URLs. Anchors such as “click here”, “here”, “Website”, “www.yoururl.com”, etc. LSI anchors are terms related to your keywords. Google looks as these links as being natural linking because most people link in this way.

What You Need to Recover

• You will need a link building campaign with lots of variation such as junk anchors, LSIs, naked urls, and brand-name anchors. Continue building these links until the scales are tipped back in your favor and the ratio of exact-match anchors is brought down.
• Revisit your website and review the content to ensure that you are using the keywords you would like to rank for and variations of those keywords.
• Add a social component so that you receive inbound links from social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.

If you have been hit by Panda 3.3 it may take several months to recover from the damage, but it is possible with the correct plan.