Panda is Google's algorithm that ranks pages based on an estimation of content quality. It was created by engineer Navneet Panda to penalize low-quality sites like content farms and sites with excessive ads. The algorithm uses machine learning to analyze pages for factors associated with low vs high quality and adjusts search rankings accordingly over time. Some signals of quality content include original writing, images, videos, trust and authority. The Panda algorithm refreshes monthly to continually assess page quality across Google's index.

1. Google’s Panda Algorithm
Make that big bad bear chew bamboo for
you.
Michael Cottam
me@michaelcottam.com
www.michaelcottam.com
@Michael512
2 May 2013

2. What is Panda?
• Not a bear.
• Meet Navneet Panda, a Google Engineer

3. Seriously, why “Panda”?
• Danny Sullivan called the algo
change “Farmer”
– Targeting content “farms”
(eHow, article factories, etc.)
• Sorry Danny, that’s BORING
• Navneet Panda was a key
engineer on that team
• He’s a machine learning guy

4. Panda is:
• A new ranking factor
– NOT a new algorithm on its own
– NOT a manual penalty
• Overall idea: use an estimation of “quality”
of the content as a ranking factor
• So…does it penalize or boost sites?

5. Dissection of the Panda
• Human quality raters rate pages
• Machine learning: what’s common
between pages that suck?
– Or that rock?
• Tweak the algo, and see if the new
results have better sites in the top
spots
– Feb 23 2011 Panda 1.0 - affected 12%
of search results

6. 2+ Years of algo changes:
it’s not all Panda
• Over 500 little updates to the algo/year
• Penguin (of course)
• Reduction in impact of EMDs
• Venice (“local universal” results)
• # of results from the same domain
• Emanuel Update: penalty for DMCA take-
downs
• Knowledge Graph
• Parked domains
• Search + Your World
• Freshness update
• Rel=next, rel=prev for pagination

7. What
is “quality”?
– Thin affiliates
– Scraper sites
– Sites with excessive ads
• Especially above-the-fold
– Made-For-Adsense
– Thin price-comparison sites

8. Grrrr….make Panda angry
• http://www.fixya.com/support/t6451689-switch_

9. Mmmm…make Panda happy
Quality, measured by:
• Low bounce rate
• Dwell time on site
• Original content (inc. images!)
• LOTS of content
• Rich content (maps, video, pics)
• Trust signals
• Expert/authority signals

10. Google Dance/Panda Dance
• The Bear Dances Slowly
• Each page gets a quality “score”
• Calculations to come up with scores for all
pages in the Google index takes WEEKS
• Algo hasn’t changed much, but…
• “Data refresh” comes every month or two
•Last one was supposed to be March 18th
•Panda is getting rolled into the main algo

11. Make that furball chew FOR you
• Rich content
• Consolidate similar pages
• Consolidate paginated content
• Maximize content above the fold
• Use original images
Examples:
• Best time to visit Tahiti
• Corvair at Keels
• BMW M1 at Monterey

12. References
• Navneet Panda’s resume:
http://www.shmula.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/navneet-panda-go
• SEOmoz chart of Google algo changes:
http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change
• Matt Cutts video: “quality raters don’t affect the algo directly”:
http://searchengineland.com/video-google-speaks-about-
search-quality-raters-119986
• Google’s public declaration of what makes quality in a page:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-
guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
• Google’s reverse image search:
http://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en
• Great reference on Panda from .NET Magazine:
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/10-things-you-need-
know-about-google-panda-and-penguin
• Library of recent Panda update articles from SEL:
• http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-panda-
update