Was your site impacted by the Panda Update? Do you know how to fix it, or at least how to do a basic content audit to come up with a strategic path to help your content rank better again. Below are a set of questions to ask during your content audit that could help you fix your content if you were affected by the wide spread Panda update.
Quality Content Satisfies These Audit Questions
- Would you trust the information?
- Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well?
- Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
- Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
- Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
- Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
- Does the article provide original content or information?
- Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages?
- How much quality control is done on content?
- Does the article describe both sides of a story?
- Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
- Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators?
- Was the article edited well?
- For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
- Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
- Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
- Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
- Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
- Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
- Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail?
- Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
More In-depth Content Audit Outline Below
The content audit below (one which we do for clients at Linchpin SEO) analyzes a wide range of questions to help you get a better idea of how your content compares to the competitive landscape who are targeting the same keyword set. It will also give you insight into their link building strategies.
Top SEO’s Discuss Other Options After Doing a Content Audit
- Increase spider crawl rates
- Add links to deeper pages
- Removed low content pages
- Blocked spiders from low-value pages
- Cleaned up webmaster tools errors
- Improved basic on page SEO details
- Restructured site architecture
- Reduced adding new content
So far, the Panda update schedule has been like this:
- Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011
- Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011 (about 7 weeks later)
- Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011 (about 4 weeks later)
- Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011 (about 5 weeks later)
- Panda Update 2.3: July 23, 2011 (about 5 weeks later)
- Panda Update 2.4 End of August 2011
- Panda Update 2.5 End of September 2011
- Panda Update 2.5.x
- Panda Update 3.1: Tiny weather report: Minor Panda algorithm data refresh (affects <1% of searches)
- Panda 3.2 on about January 15th
- Panda 3.3 Feb 28, 2012
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