Since the inception of SEO, the cries that SEO is dead were right around the corner. This is also true every time Google tweaks their algorithm a little bit. The most recent of these has been a year long process involving various small tweaks known as Panda. There’s a lot of misunderstanding surrounding what Panda is, and whether or not it’s killed SEO, so let’s go ahead and set some of the straight.
First, people need to realize that Panda didn’t involve any sort of manual penalty. It DOES involve an aspect that incorporates feedback from manual reviewers that helps the algorithm identify content that matches content the reviewers have deemed unworthy. However, just because your site got the axe after a Panda update, doesn’t mean some reviewer visited your site and hit the big red “Spam” button.
But, more importantly, should you abandon your SEO efforts because of Panda. The answer is very obviously no. Perhaps you need to tone down the aggressiveness of your campaign, but Panda didn’t kill SEO. As a matter of fact, the tweak that took into account over-optimized anchor link text wasn’t even a part of Panda – it was some little side tweak. Vary your anchor text, and incorporate much more “branded” style links as Google is clearly gearing towards branded sites these days.
Everything else involved with SEO, like optimizing everything on site, building content to match keywords, and then building links to that content is still alive and well. Nothing has really changed here. The only minor thing is that anchor text thing, and that’s something smart SEOs have been doing for some time. Each time Google hits the algo button, there’s no reason to run around like a headless chicken gurgling through the blood that SEO is dead, and that you have to change everything about your site before Google gets you. Get real people.
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