Writing Content Quality and Google Panda: Does it really matter?
In case you were blissfully unaware, during April 2012, the Google Panda algorithm change rolled out and it bestowed websites using good SEO techniques (White Hat) with better page rankings and downgraded or banned those utilizing poor SEO (Black Hat). Google launched Panda as a part of their never ending effort to reward those Internet sites offering writing content of the highest quality and information so as to offer their users the best and most informative results from their search engine. In order to understand why Google is catering to high quality writing content, you must fathom the depths of deceit and spam that goes along with Black Hat marketing.
For lack of a better explanation, Black Hat Internet marketing utilizes the poorest of SEO techniques (spam articles), website content (bogus information), keyword stuffing (repetitive and over-abundance), a static website that never updates its’ information and irrelevant links (links that do not match the information in the article) in order to create quick and cheap sites that can be put up by the hundreds if not thousands in a day or two. Why? Money is the short answer. Easy and quick money that turns a small profit but when multiplied by tens or hundreds, the click-thru ads, links, banners ads and other marketing campaigns begin to net a decent passive income. However, it does nothing to help the web-surfer looking for answers and needing relevant information.
White Hat Internet marketing focuses on good SEO techniques (high quality writing), informative websites with relevant content, weekly if not daily content updates and changes (blogs, forums, Social Media usage), using relevant keywords that make sense with the article and contains sprinklings rather than bombardment, and article links that send the reader to additional information to help them and is identical to the content of the article (i.e. an article on dog health has links to sites on dog medicines, vitamins, etc.). Yes, these sites take longer to build and cost more money to launch and maintain, however they reap greater profits once established because they become a safe-haven of knowledge and information – a place where readers will congregate because they trust the site, its’ information and links.
Does writing content quality really matter? Yes, it truly does. No one wants to be sent all over the web looking for information that should be posted on the site they have discovered. The surfer clicked the search engine link to that website because it read like it would help them not so they could click-thru a few more sites until they finally landed on some solid content. The average surfer will land on a website and if after 30 seconds (more like 15 seconds) they are not “grabbed” they will leave – forever. Why? It might be due to all the sham websites out there using Black Hat marketing. Why bother to read any information when it is obvious what the site is really all about – bait and switch tactics. Never lose sight of the goal – turning surfers into customers. This is true no matter what you are selling.