Do not try to read the update from week-to-week rankings; it will roll out over months. Find thin, duplicated and copied pages now, then improve, merge or remove them, and note the date of each change.

What Google said yesterday

Yesterday Google confirmed that a Panda update had begun the weekend before. Unlike earlier ones, which mostly completed within days or weeks, this one will roll out slowly over several months.

Panda is the part of Google's ranking that judges the quality of a site's content. It first appeared in 2011, and the last confirmed update came last autumn.

It can affect a whole site, not only its weakest pages. A site with enough thin or copied pages can see everything ranked lower.

And a site held back by an earlier update may recover, but only when this one reaches it, which may be weeks or months away.

What Panda looks for

The second is everywhere on small business sites that list products. A description copied from the manufacturer appears on hundreds of other sites, so a page built from it adds nothing Google has not already seen.

Why slow makes it hard to read

When an update lands over a few days, a site that drops can usually point to the date. Spread over months, the change may reach your site in week three or week ten, and gradually.

Summer adds noise. Many local businesses are quieter in July and August anyway, and a dip could be holidays, a competitor's new site, or Panda.

Other changes overlap too. In May Google confirmed a change to how its main ranking judges quality, and the doorway page change dates from March.

So resist explaining every movement. Weekly rankings will be noisy for a while, and decisions based on one week's noise are usually wrong.

What to fix regardless

The useful response does not depend on timing. Pages Panda discounts are also pages that do little for visitors, so improving them is worth doing whether or not this update touches you.

Start with an inventory: every page on the site, what it is for, and whether anyone visits it. Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) shows which pages appear in search; Analytics shows which get visits.

Then sort each page into keep, improve, merge or remove.

Thin pages

A thin page is one where a visitor learns nothing beyond the title. Service pages with two sentences are the usual case.

Improve them with what customers actually ask: what the job involves, what affects the price, how long it takes, what the customer needs to do, and a photo of real work.

If there is nothing more to say, merge the page into a broader one and redirect the old address there, so links and bookmarks still land somewhere useful.

Copied descriptions

Manufacturer descriptions are written to be copied, and every dealer copies them. Google has no reason to rank your copy above the manufacturer's own, or above the other dealers'.

Rewrite the products you sell most with what you know and the brochure does not say: which model suits which home, what installation involves, and what you would choose.

For the long tail nobody asks about, a short page with the specifications and a line of your own beats a copied essay. Some can go.

Near-identical pages

Town pages that differ only in a name were the subject of Google's doorway change in March. The same pattern turns up in other places.

A product sold in four sizes, with four pages of identical text, is one page spread across four addresses. A single page with the sizes in a table serves visitors better.

Blog tag and date archives are a quieter version of the same thing. Most content systems can keep them out of search with a noindex setting.

A worked example

A standby generator installer in a semi-rural area sells, installs and services whole-home generators for houses on wells and acreages, where a power cut also stops the water.

Its site had sixty product pages copied word for word from three manufacturers' brochures, though the company regularly installed about a dozen models.

Its service pages were thin as well: maintenance plans, fuel conversions and transfer switches had two sentences each. Its town pages had already been merged in March, after the doorway announcement.

Rankings had sagged since last fall, possibly from Panda, possibly not. The owner decided not to wait for proof.

The dozen models they install got rewritten pages: what size of home each suits, fuel options, noise, what installation involves and what servicing costs each year.

The other forty-eight were merged into one page per manufacturer, with redirects. Each service page gained the questions customers ask on the phone, and every change went into Analytics as an annotation.

Keep a log of changes

Because the rollout is slow, write down what changed and when. An annotation in Analytics puts a note on the graph itself, so a later dip or rise can be read against it.

Note outside events too: a site move, a new competitor, a mention in the paper, a week of heavy rain.

In a few months that log will explain more than any ranking report.

What not to do

Do not delete large parts of the site in a hurry. Pages that bring visitors and enquiries should be improved, not removed, even if they are short.

And do not buy cheap articles to bulk the site up. Thin text written quickly by someone who does not know your trade is what this part of Google is built to discount.

The counter-case

A small site with a dozen solid pages, written about real work, has little for Panda to object to. It may need no changes at all.

A site that ranks poorly for other reasons, such as a weak listing, few reviews or a slow phone experience, will not be fixed by content work alone.

But thin, copied and duplicated pages help nobody. Improve, merge or remove them now, and judge the result over months, not days.

Before the update reaches you

  1. List every page and what it is for.
  2. Check which pages get impressions and visits.
  3. Rewrite copied descriptions for products you sell.
  4. Merge near-identical pages into one good page.
  5. Redirect every address you remove or merge.
  6. Keep thin archives out of search.
  7. Annotate each change in Analytics.

Step three is the one most worth the effort. Your own knowledge of the products is what no other dealer's copy contains, and it is what a buyer came looking for.

Pages built only to rank in each town were the subject of Google takes aim at doorway pages.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly did Google confirm?

That a Panda update had begun and would roll out slowly over several months, rather than within days or weeks as earlier updates mostly did.

What does Panda look at?

The quality of a site's content: thin pages, copied manufacturer descriptions, near-identical pages for each town or product, empty archives and pages made only to rank.

Why is the slow rollout a problem?

Changes can reach a site at any point over months, gradually, while summer, competitors and other Google changes move rankings too. Cause and effect become hard to see.

Should I wait to see if I'm affected?

No. The pages Panda discounts also do little for visitors, so improving, merging or removing them is worth doing whether or not this update reaches you.

Should I delete short pages?

Not if they bring visitors or enquiries; improve those first. Merge pages that have nothing more to say, and redirect the old addresses to the page that replaces them.

How will I know if it worked?

Record each change with an Analytics annotation and judge the trend over months against the same period last year, not one week of movement.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Product pages copied from the manufacturer?

Tell us your web address. We will list the pages worth rewriting, merging or retiring before the update reaches you.

Start a Conversation