Google is the most famous search engine that forms primary source of getting information online. It is one of the most visited website that processes about one billion searches per day and keeps on increasing. Both the online and offline businesses need a high search position so that they gain the attention of their customers. To improve the search results, Google has made an update with the search algorithm known as "Google Panda". It is not a change to the overall algorithm, instead a ranking factor has been included to it. During the updation of Google panda it would be the biggest talk among the website owners and bloggers.

The main objective of this update is to let Google filter out low quality pages and to deliver content with high quality that adds some real value. It is also referred as "Farmer Update", as it designed to discard the content farms that link to the web pages which may not have a related text and useful search result. Apart from this, it is designed to reduce spam and improve scraper detection. Prior to this update, pages were ranked using Google page rank algorithm. Though it works, panda update would be the next layer of ranking. It rolls out periodically and has a greater impact to the overall ranking of website.

Google Panda Update:

The recent Google panda updates in the year 2011 are listed below:

Feb 24, 2011: Version 1.0
Apr 11, 2011: Version 2.0
May 10, 2011: Version 2.1
Jun 16, 2011: Version 2.2
Jul 23, 2011: Version 2.3
Aug 12, 2011: Version 2.4
Sep 28, 2011: Version 2.5
Oct 13, 2011: Version 2.5.2

Sites affected by panda update:

Publishing the content just for the purpose of driving huge traffic is not a good idea. Henceforth, most of the websites like ezine article, Mahalo, Wisegeek, Answerbag, etc has been affected by the panda update. Some of the websites that are affected due to Google Panda are:
1. wisegeek.com
2. suite101.com
3. hubpages.com
4. buzzle.com
5. ezinearticles.com
6. articlebase.com
7. mahalo.com
8. business.com
9. doityourself.com
10. answerbag.com
11. thefind.com
12. allbusiness.com
13. fixya.com
14. freedownloadscenter.com
15. examiner.com
16. articlealley.com
Also there were many gainers with this update like youtube, AOL, IGN, Metacafe, Zappos and so on.

Tips to recover from Google Panda Update:

Analyze how panda has affected your site by checking your analytics software. Though there are reported improvements in search results, many webmasters and bloggers experience the large drop in traffic and Adsense earnings to their site. The changes that are to be done to recover your website from the clutches of panda update are:
1. Get rid of duplicate content. Create a unique and high quality content that adds value to your site.
2. Reduce bounce rate by providing a related content to the users.
3. Improve internal linking structure.
4. Make yourself known by using more Google services. This is because, Google gives importance to their sites on comparing other sites.
5. Fix crawl errors in your site.
Content farms are being kicked off and only high quality sites are given more exposure in Google search results. Google Panda is all about providing users the reality they want from a search engine.