The latest roll-out for the much publicised Google Panda algorithm change is due shortly, as confirmed by Matt Cutts of Google at the You & A (Q&A to the rest of us) during the SMX Advanced Seattle conference.
What’s new, and why so soon after the first Google Panda ranking amendments? Citing improved ‘Scraper Detection’, the so called Google Panda 2.2 change looks to prevent websites duplicating original content from other sites and getting ranked first. Some websites publishing content could previously have been penalised- should someone scrape their content and get it cached on their own site before Google found the original source.
According to Cutts, this change has no manual element attached; it’s a feature change to the existing algorithm that will improve scraping detection and penalise accordingly.
Because of the unusually high level of impact created by the first Panda update, the 2.2 change will be awaited by many with trepidation, especially those who regularly quote news from other websites.
One problem we see when the Panda changes are refined even further is the risk associated with quoting others. Duplicate paragraphs of content, when someone feels it necessary to reference material or a large quotation, could surely be affected by the Panda 2.2 change. A Google Penalty is a scary punishment for someone running a genuine website, who coincidently triggers a warning sign to the Google robots.
