The first Google algorithm update for 2013 is a “Panda Refresh”

What should we do with the recent panda algorithm update gone live?

As 2013 unfolded, the entire SEO world was anticipating about the first Google algorithm update for the New Year. Now it turns out that the first update is a Panda Refresh which has its effect on 1.2% of the total English queries. With the official tweet from Google, the first algorithm update for the year is marked. Here is the original tweet:

Remember the day when Google Panda scared everyone in the web marketing world back in February 2011? The first panda update was like a major earthquake; however the aftershocks which kept appearing in the form of data refreshes are not even noticed nowadays as they have become too common (this is the 3rd month in a row where we have seen panda refreshes). Whenever there is an algorithm update, everyone head to the analytics of their website to see if there were any changes in traffic. However, most of them fail to see the trend changes in third-party sites they have used for link building. There are several game changing trends that occur because of the algorithm updates which would help you in re-strategizing your SEO campaigns. The comeback of Squidoo after being heavily hit by the first panda update is an excellent example. Squidoo lenses have been ruled-out of the SEO strategies and many recent SEO packages just because of the fact that the site took a very bad hit by the Panda algorithm. However, squidoo lenses get ranked high on the search results nowadays and many of them which I have seen carry a page rank of 5. As you know, squidoo still offers do-follow links which would be very much valuable as well. Here are a few examples that I spotted:

• I searched for the term “football cakes” which has “4400” phrase match searches per month and I found this squidoo lens on the 5th position http://www.squidoo.com/football-cakes and the lens seems to be created on January 13th 2013
• I search for the term “Potato Toppings” which has over 4000 phrase match searches every month, I was presented with this lens http://www.squidoo.com/best-baked-potato-toppings which has a page rank of 5 as well.
• I have my own lens about “squidoo trophies” appearing on the 4th position on the first page of Google along with the Author information. This lens http://www.squidoo.com/my-list-of-squidoo-trophies has a page rank of 2 as well.

See how neatly the squidoo page appears in the search results along with the author snippets:

In addition to this, when the Google panda refresh 20 was live during September, there was a gradual increase in traffic to squidoo as reported by GreekGeek using Quantcast reporting. Here is my own version of the screen cap of the interesting data.

Though I have given over-importance to squidoo in this topic, the subject matter that I was focusing on is to highlight the necessity to analyze all the SEO strategies that you labeled as worthless because of the initial panda update. As the panda refreshes go live and the site that took a hit changing their models, sometimes “they come back from the dead”!

Do you agree with the fact that Squidoo marketing still has great importance in terms of SEO? Share your thoughts! Comments are open…