I recently stumbled across this article on Hubspot by Kieran Flanagan, and it got me thinking about Google’s Panda update. I wondered what exactly it was, what happened recently and why it was important to me as a marketer.

Over St. Patrick’s Day weekend, Google performed its latest update to Panda, an algorithm initiated in early 2011, that changed the way Google populated search results on its famous search engine. It’s not clear to me now how many searches were affected by this recent update, but a look at the updates initiated since last year show that the percentage of searches affected are decreasing– only 1.2% were affected this past January.

The Head of Google Webspam, Matt Cutts reported that further updates would not be announced since they will occur automatically with other updates.

So what’s Panda about?

The initial Panda update in early 2011 affected nearly 12% of Google queries. The algorithm benefited Google’s users by pushing low quality content to the bottom of search results. This is how Google described it on their blog at the time:

“Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.”

These are the two most significant qualifiers for low quality content:

• pages that rip-off content from other sites
• pages without real value (full of purchased links and advertisements) with no real content

Why is this important to marketers?

Google’s Panda update affects marketers directly because it corresponds to how users find their business online. Marketing and PR professionals must encompass digital channels in their marketing plans to increase visibility and outreach to target markets.

By knowing what kind of content the internet’s most popular search engine (it recently took 67% of the market share) is looking to provide its users, marketers can strategize ways to gain the best visibility and grow their audience.

What to do now

The simplest and easiest solution is to provide rich, relevant information on your website. Here’s how:

• add valuable information like statistics, examples and case studies
• avoid duplicating information (in its entirety) from other websites
• use applicable keywords; don’t thoughtlessly litter your web pages without having relevant content to support them

What actions have you taken to enhance your customer’s experience as a result of the Panda updates? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Read more about Google Panda and other updates on the Google blog.