Are you looking for a detailed guide on Google Panda recovery?

Have you noticed any traffic drop on your websites? It might be because you’re hit by an algorithm update from Google such as Panda. If you’re not taking any precautions while creating content, website traffic keeps on dropping. In this detailed guide, I’ll share a few amazing Google Panda recovery tips.

What’s Google Panda update?

Google Panda is an important update from Google that is aimed at penalizing the sites with thin content. And it’s also a blessing for sites that have high-quality content.

Panda update was first released in 2011, it was introduced to strike out all the low-quality sites with poor content from the search results.

In a nutshell, the Panda update will penalize the sites with low-quality content and rewards the sites with high-quality content.

There are many websites that have been demolished after the recent Google Panda update 4.0. If you are one among them, this detailed guide is for you to recover from the Google panda penalty.

Before going into the details, first, know which Google update affected your website traffic. Here’s an interesting illustration of both panda and penguin updates.

The best way to find it out is to check the Google update dates. You can check them here, this is a detailed guide written by Moz blog.

Also, do a simple SEO audit on your sites by going into your Google Webmaster Tools >> Search Appearance >> HTML improvements, and you will see if there are any duplicate titles and meta descriptions present on your websites.

Prefer watching a video? Check it out from here.

How to recover from Google Panda Updates

If you are hit by Google Panda, it’s not the end of the world. You can still get back your search rankings (in fact, you can improve your search traffic) if you implement a few strategies on your blogs or websites.

If you search online for Panda recovery tips, you will come up with thousands of articles. But let me tell you one thing, most of these posts add no real value to the readers who really want to get back their site traffic after the Google panda update.

That’s the reason why I have carefully researched and shared the tips for recovering from the Google panda penalty. Let’s jump into the details.

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1. Fix similar content issues

Quality wins over quantity. So instead of churning out 1000 blog posts that are of no absolute use, it’s better to create 100 blog posts that are of high quality, highly in-depth, and informative.

Google’s John Mueller had this to say about the update and its connection to the quality of your content.

“There’s no minimum length, and there’s no minimum number of articles a day that you have to post, nor even a minimum number of pages on a website. In most cases, quality is better than quantity. We give top priority to content that’s of high quality, unique, and compelling to users. Don’t fill your site with low-quality content, instead work on creating epic content that servers people, not search engines.”

So what can you understand from the above statement?

If you’ve content quality-related issues, fix them as soon as possible to avoid Google penalties.

Having too many topics around the same topic can lead to a Google panda penalty.

If your website lacks focus and covers multiple blog posts under the same topic, you might face penalty issues from Google Panda, so make sure to focus on providing a one-stop guide, rather than focusing on creating multiple posts around the same topic.

Here’s what we do at Bloggers Passion to fix similar content issues

We club together all the similar content-type posts. For example, there are 3 to 4 blog posts that have been published on our blog that talk about the same topic “building a profitable blog” so we decided to club all the similar posts to make one MEGA post by targeting all the relevant keywords for those topics.

Here are what the content looks like (after clubbing).

As you can see the post became so massive and has all the information that one needs to know about building a profitable blog in 2022 and beyond.

That way we’re helping people to find A to Z information around one topic and we’re also fixing similar content issues to prevent our site from getting penalized by any kind of algorithms which include Panda.

So you too can follow the same approach where you’ll have to find all the similar blog posts or pages that are published on your blog and try to club them all and make it a single post (which is often very detailed) and focus on adding few relevant keywords to get more search benefits.

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2. Fix poor grammar issues

Make sure your content has no grammatical mistakes, typos, errors, and so on because Google Panda algorithms also focus on your content quality (which includes how error-free your content is).

The best way to fix poor grammar issues on your site is to use grammar checker tools like Grammarly. Grammarly is one of the most used and best grammar checker tools available on the Internet right now.

It comes with both free and premium plans where the free plan (offers you a browser extension to find and correct your grammar issues on the go) whereas the premium version gives you sophisticated features like plagiarism checking and having more than 200+ different grammar corrections and identification algorithms to fix poor grammar issues on your site.

Here are some of the things to check while using any grammar checker tools;

• Spelling mistakes and incorrectly used words
• Improperly used punctuation; correct use of semicolons, commas, colons, apostrophes, and other marks
• Grammar correcting issues such as dangling modifiers, fragments, etc
• Find any issues with possible plagiarism

That being said, you can visit Grammarly from here, create a free account with them and grab their free chrome extension to improve your writing quickly on the go.

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3. Increase your website’s dwell time, reduce bounce rates

Dwell time on the website is the amount of time spent reading a specific site content, on average.

Dwell time plays a key role in Panda recovery since time spent on a page is closely related to user experience with a website, you can sure dwell time is somehow involved in improving your overall website search engine rankings.

Dwell time basically gives you an idea about “Are visitors actually reading my content?”

Both dwell time and your website bounce rates go hand in hand. That means, if your dwell time is high (the average time spent on your site by your visitors), your bounce rate will be low because people will also be looking for more information by clicking relevant pages on your site.

Here are a few things you can do to improve dwell time and decrease bounce rates quickly.

• Use internal linking smartly by linking to highly relevant content within your blog posts. As a rule of thumb, use at least 4 to 5 links within a 2000-word blog post to increase dwell time and reduce bounce rates. Also, show related posts in your sidebar (as we’re showing now) or at the end of your blog posts which also helps.
• Create detailed content. We usually write 2000+ word blog posts and we often notice that the users spend most of their time while they are reading a long piece of content.
• Make your content easy to digest. Most people don’t spend much time reading a long and boring paragraph. So make sure to divide your paragraphs into 2 to 3 lines and also use bullet points, and subheadings.

Here are a few changes you can make on your site to instantly recover from Google Panda updates in the future:

• Understand the niche or industry which you are in (so you can create highly relevant content that’s useful for your target audience)
• Understand the targeted market and targeted audience (and know their wants and needs)
• Mainly create content for your website’s targeted audience, not for search engines
• Make sure your UI and UX must be easy to use, engaging and fast enough to load
• Stop focusing on keyword density or keyword stuffing such as repeating keywords and focus primarily on creating content for people
• Give extra thought to optimizing your title and meta description for your audience and also focus on including your primary keyword

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4. Increase click through rates from search

The #1 way to increase your overall website ranks is to improve your overall click-through rates. The best way to Panda recovery is to improve your content SEO optimization.

That being said, a generic title tag, and poor meta description can literally affect your website from getting more clicks from search engines like Google.

So make sure to improve your click-through rates from search.

Here’s how you can do it.

Install WordPress SEO by Yoast: It’s the #1 optimization plugin that helps you optimize your titles, and meta description and helps you focus on optimizing your content for one primary keyword.

Here’s what it looks like;

Also make sure to write excellent, unique, and click-worthy headlines so you can improve overall clicks on your blog posts from search engines. Make sure to also put the main keyword within your title tag for better optimization. Don’t overdo it though by focusing on using two keywords within your title.

Also, learn from your competitors. Whether you know it or not, if you get more clicks, even if you’re ranking at 5th position on Google, you can quickly jump to the first result by attracting more clicks from search users.

So before writing on a topic, make sure to go through the top 10 search results to see how the headlines are crafted. Find out whether they are using how-to’s, list posts or guides, or videos to get into the top 10 results so you can implement the same headline tactics to improve your overall click-through rates.

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5. Fix bad content on your websites

One of the major reasons your site is affected by panda updates is because you have thin content which is usually known as bad content.

These thin contents often get slashed by Google search engine crawlers, because they only want to show better content to their users to give the best user experience. If you really want to get better search results, then you need to first sue your bad content.

Remember, Panda knows which is quality content and which is not.

How to find bad content on your sites?

One of the easiest ways to find and fix your bad content is to use your Google analytics. Know your traffic metrics for all the blog posts that you have published on your sites. The blog posts that have less SEO traffic are often the bad posts (in terms of Google eyes).

So here are a few ways to fix the bad content to recover from panda updates quickly.

• Use unique headlines: Most people Google random post ideas and come up almost with the same headlines and use them on their blogs to get better search results. Google updates slap you if you don’t have unique headlines for your blog posts or pages. Always make sure to have magnetic and unique headlines, and make sure to Google whether there are any headlines available that you want to cover.
• Delete or update your bad blog posts: I know, we all have some blog posts that don’t add any value to either search engines or readers. If you know any of them, try fixing them immediately. As Google Panda updates its algorithms every now and then, you will get better rankings for the posts or pages that you make some improvements by adding more quality or deleting the bad posts from your sites.
• Give your old posts an SEO boost by interlinking: Interlinking your blog posts can be crucial in getting better search results. I would strongly advise you not to use any automation interlinking plugins or tools to link. They often almost link to the same posts, so make sure to manually add the posts and maintain relevancy.
• Fix your broken links: Broken links have nothing to do with Google Panda updates (Google Penguin updates are more concerned about bad links), but if you want to get a fast recovery from Google panda updates, then find and fix all your broken or dead links on your websites. Because the links you add to your posts or pages definitely matter in terms of measuring the quality of the content. So focus on removing the bad links that are affecting your overall content. You can use the plugins like Broken link checker to find and fix your broken links on WordPress sites.

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5. Create “high quality content”

If you are searching for proven ways to recover from Google Panda updates, make sure to focus on creating top-notch content. Google always rewards the sites with high-quality content. Here’s what top quality content means;

Content that is flawless: If you have blog posts or pages with grammatical mistakes or typos, your sites get affected by Google panda updates. The only solution to recover is to write flawless content or hire someone who writes better content for you to grow your organic traffic.

Always make sure to double-check your posts for any mistakes before hitting publish button. Google doesn’t want to show or give top search results to the content that is full of typos. At least hire an editor if you are not good at publishing flawless content to make sure you are not being hit by Google panda updates. Also, focus on creating long-form of content because it works best.

Content that is meant for readers, not search engines: If you are not writing relevant content for your sites, Google panda updates will slap you. So it’s always better to focus on specific keywords than confusing Google crawlers about the relevancy of your content.

For example, if you use the word Apple, there are so many changes that Google might consider that either as a fruit, brand, or any name. If you don’t confuse Google by using the Apple word and filling your copy with a fruit name, brand, or any name, you will definitely get penalized as Google can’t understand what you are really thinking to rank for. So focus on your targeted keywords and supplement them with relevant keywords to get better search rankings and never ever use irrelevant keywords.

Content that is original: Create content that is not shared anywhere else. Google updates like Panda and Penguin are giving more priority to the content-filled sites that are uniquely written. If you are the one who is thinking to copy others’ headlines, descriptions, sub-heads or copies of the contents, you will definitely get penalized by Google Panda updates. And it’s hard to recover unless you remove these copied contents or start producing really original content.

Stop too much indication of your posts: While it’s good to have your content indicated on different platforms to get more traffic, it’s advisable if you stop indicating your content on too many platforms. Make sure to syndicate your content on only those sites where you are most active, where you share your opinions with others and help others to grow their businesses.

Make sure your content is highly relevant: There’s only one effective way to recover from Google Panda updates and that is to write highly relevant topics on your blog. It’s not about posting anything under the sun on your blog to increase your website search traffic. Only publish contents that are highly relevant to your blog’s topic. If you are a beginner, instead of focusing on too many areas, focus on 2 to 3 topic ideas that are relevant to your blog audience. That way you will get more time to address the right people.

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7. Go social, diversify your traffic sources

Social sharing is the key. Whether you agree with it or not, Google updates give top priority to the social shares on your posts or pages. If your content gets a lot of shares and comments, surely you will deserve better search rankings on Google.

So how to get more social shares on your blog posts to recover from Google updates like Panda and Penguin?

Here are a few simple tips you can use.

• Use a social sharing button plugin and display it at the top or left side of your blog posts.
• Use attractive images on your blog posts. Images often attract more people to share your blog posts. They especially go really viral on sites like Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook.
• Also, time your blog posts. Share them on social media sites at peak times. Find out when your readers or fans will be available online and promote your blog posts on the social media sites accordingly.
• Ask your readers or followers to share your posts on their social media accounts. Just by asking them, you can dramatically increase your social shares. If they really find your posts relevant and useful, they will definitely spread the word for you.
• Write compelling headlines on your blog posts or web pages to attract more social shares. The audience on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter mostly lookup for headlines, if they are really persuading, they will instantly click on your posts and they will share them with others if they find your posts useful. So make sure to write attention-grabbing headlines to recover from Google Panda updates.
• Post your links on social media sites at the right times to reach out to maximum people. Also, start using others’ names while sharing stuff on social media. Make sure to include influential bloggers in your social sharing links if you mention them in your blog posts.

One more important thing to remember is to diversify your traffic sources. Why depend solely on Google to get traffic to your websites or blogs? Focus your time and energy also on the sites like social media and leverage your blog traffic using email lists etc. This way you won’t get much affected even when Google introduces new animal updates to drop your search engine rankings.

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8. Use LSI keywords over short tail keywords

One of the top ways to recover from Google Panda penalties is to use LSI keywords, they give huge value to your blog posts.

Latent semantic indexing keywords (or LSI keywords) are simply known as related keywords or synonyms.

For example, if you are writing about WordPress SEO plugins, you can also use the relevant (LSI) keywords like Best SEO plugins for WordPress, SEO WP plugins, etc. on your blog posts to rank well in Google search results.

How do using LSI keywords help recover from Google panda updates?

You are not using the same keywords again and again when using LSI keywords. It means you are not over-optimizing your blog posts just to get better search results for your desired keywords. You are focusing more on giving a better user experience by writing and including relevant and LSI keywords on your blog posts or pages.

This will be definitely seen as a positive sign by Google and helps you increase your search traffic for the keywords you are targeting for. Here’s what the LSI keywords look like (for example keyword: “fitness tips for men”)

How to find LSI keywords?

The best way of finding LSI keywords is to use the Google auto-suggestion tool. For example, when you type for SEO tips on Google, it will also show you synonyms for the same keywords at the end of the results.

You can use them as well on your blog posts to tell Google properly that you are writing really relevant content for the keywords you are ranking for on search engines.

How many % keywords should you use?

There’s no thumb rule actually. It’s better if you don’t go beyond 3% of keyword density for any keywords you are targeting for. Less than 1% keyword density is also not good as it may not give you any great results from the search engines.

So, it’s advisable to use the keyword density between 1 to 3% but make sure to use LSI keywords also along with your focused keywords. This way you will be able to rank well for several keywords from one piece of content.

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9. Excessive ads can kill your SEO

Perform heatmap analysis with Ptengine to figure out what’s performing better and what isn’t. Likewise, you would be able to eliminate the bad ones and keep the ones performing best.

Did you know that the ads you use on your blogs will have a huge impact on your search engine rankings?

It’s true that too many ads above the fold are too bad for your SEO. So make sure your site layout is focused on giving a better experience to your readers, not advertisers.

Google may penalize your site for having too many advertisements on your blogs or websites. Use the above-the-fold area to give maximum visibility to your content, not ads.

Here’s what Google said on its Inside Search blog:

We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.

So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.

Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

If your site is hit by Panda updates, remove your ads that are above the fold and recrawl your site with fewer ads. This will help you easily recover from upcoming Panda updates.

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10. No more content farms

Google also started taking serious actions against content farms that were gaining top rankings with thin quality content.

Basically, content farms mean, that few companies hire a large number of freelance writers to start generating a lot of textual content to satisfy algorithms. This is done just to increase their search engine rankings. Usually, these types of content are posted only by using keyword stuffing or rehashing the contents.

According to many reports, the new change on Google Panda against penalizing these content farms impacted over 12% of US results. That’s a lot, right?

So if you are using these content farms, stop using it right away to avoid penalties from Google Panda updates.

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11. Noindex your tags and categories

There are a few pages that are not required to show on Google search results if you don’t want to get hit by any Google update like Penguin or Panda. These pages include your tags, category pages, image attachment pages, etc.

The important thing here to remember is to only show those pages on Google that are of highest quality. Mostly tags and category pages don’t have any quality as they only show your excerpts or just tags, they don’t add any value to your search results. So it’s always better to noindex these tags and categories pages from WordPress to keep your blog safe from Google updates.

And also noindex unwanted pages like your newsletter subscription, download content or poor content pages from Google to make sure your site is full of great content pages.

Once open your Pages in WordPress (from the dashboard), check all the published pages you have. Find out that ones that don’t add any value to the search engines, and then noindex one by one.

How can you noindex unwanted pages from WordPress?

One of the easiest ways to remove unwanted pages from Google search results is to use an awesome plugin called WordPress meta robots that makes your categories, tags, and archive noindex. And all the search results within your site, 404 and others to noindex, nofollow.

This is by far the most useful plugin to help you noindex unwanted links from Google search results.

So that’s it from my end. I hope the strategies mentioned in this guide will help you recover from all the Google Panda updates. Make sure to work on all of them to get back your search rankings in the coming updates from Google Panda.

Google Panda 4.1 update

As of now, Google Panda 4.1 update is still rolling in (from a week) and most gaming and lyrics-related websites have been affected by this update. This update was first announced by Pierre Far on his Google plus profile on 26th September 2014. Many search engine-related websites suggest Google Panda 4.1 awarded the sites that create news, content, and download portals. And Google Panda 4.1 updated caused the damage to the sites that are related to games, lyrics, and medical content.

Google Panda updates are frequently rolled out because of one major reason: to remove thin content from search results and give a better experience to Google users. If you’re not focusing on creating helpful content or just rehashing others’ content, you are not going to survive from Google Panda updates.

If you’re gaming, lyrics, or medical-related niche and hit by Google Panda 4.1 update, just make sure to follow the advice mentioned in this guide and you will be able to recover in the next Google Panda update.

Google Panda 4.0 update

Google released Panda update 4.0 on 21st May 2014. There are many sites that lose their organic traffic by up to 60%. Even the giant eCommerce sites like eBay lost approx. 80% of their organic traffic after recent Panda update.

Google Panda 4.0 update has affected 7% of queries. Previously whenever Google panda updates were rolling in, they used to affect 1 to 2% of search results. It means this time almost 7% (that’s a whopping number!) have been removed from search results just in the name of thin or poor content. This is the reason why many sites lost their organic traffic immensely, and few sites with quality content have increased their search traffic dramatically.

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FAQs

Here are some of the most important questions you must know if you’re looking for Google panda recovery in 2022 and beyond.

Here’s the video on how to remove bad/toxic links with Semrush.

Browse more SEO Tutorials:

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Final Thoughts

Recovering from Google Panda updates is not a big deal if you focus on giving top-notch quality to your readers. Focus on your readers and Google Panda will take care of your search traffic.

Google Panda updates are mainly targeted at penalizing the sites with thin content and giving the best and high-quality sites to the users from the search results. So focus on implementing the tips mentioned in this detailed guide on Google Panda recovery, you’ll see the best results.

Let me know what you think? Have you been hit by Google panda? If yes, what did you do to recover from Panda updates? Please share your thoughts below.