It's Just a Cute and Cuddly Panda Bear!! Or is it? What Does Google’s Panda 4.2 Update Mean for Your Company Website?

Google LOVES to change their algorithm on us ... and for those of us who just use Google for searches, it just makes our lives easier (usually) ... but for those of us who need Google searches for people to FIND us these changes are infuriating.

I remember the first time I was affected for a big algorithm change by Google .. there I was, sailing the high traffic seas on Style Unveiled ... and then: BAM!!!!!  Style Unveiled traffic went from 6,000 PER DAY to only 2,000 per day ... depressing, right??  Yes, it was.

I've already shared the first change Google is making ... which is that NON mobile optimized website will be nowhere to be found on Google's high ranking pages ... they are rolling that out now and websites who aren't optimized for mobile will be punished ... but the next phase in this was announced just last week over Twitter in a cryptic fashion ... essentially saying that the roll-out would be slow .... but none the less, it will be a BIG change .. affecting 2-3% of the search queries.  Sound like no big deal?  WRONG: 2–3% is still quite large in comparison to other changes Google has made; history shows that from September 2011 to May 2014, no single update impacted more than 2.4 percent of queries. 

So what to do?  There isn't a whole lot you can do except what I always say on here:  make sure your website has been mobile device optimized, focus on content and making sure your website is content driven, and make sure your images are optimized ... the things I do for ALL my clients when I build their websites.  Other than that, if you see your traffic take a big DIVE in the next 10 ish months then you know that Google is punishing you and you may need to start completely fresh with a new website that has everything Google likes to see ... let's just play this one out and see what happens!

XO~ Heather