The SEO and the webmasters community is worried again. The day before yesterday (i.e. May 13th), many people noticed a major shuffle in their site's search results. If you remember it, the last Panda update (version 3.6) was rolled out by Google only after 8 days of the previous one. And once again, there are reports that Google may have launched yet another update. So, did you notice any major changes in your site's traffic?

According to Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Round Table, this may be the second Penguin Update (1.1) by Google. However, there are no confirmed reports about this update as of yet. Google spokespersons are also denying that any new search algorithmic update (whether Panda or Penguin) has been launched by the search giant.

News of Recovery from Penguin Attack
There are also a couple of reports that suggest many sites' recovery after they were penalized by the last Penguin update. Webmasters that removed thin content from their site (after being hit) saw a boost in their keyword traffic in the last two days. All these reports of recovery also suggest that Google might have launched some freshness update.

Though there are news of recovery, one thing that you really need to be sure about is whether your site was penalized by the Penguin update. You can never reach a suitable conclusion until you know what type of penalty caused your site's ranking to drop in search engines.

So, be careful before making any decision regarding the SEO of your website. It's not always wise to jump at every little indication of change in a site's SEO. Don't ever act until you have traced the exact reasons.

Advice for the Post-Penguin/ Panda Era
If your site traffic depends largely on Google searches, you should start making the necessary changes to your SEO strategy in the light of the Google webmaster guidelines. While Google Panda doesn't like thin or low quality content, its Penguin hates web spam (keyword stuffing or unnatural backlinks profile). That's why it's important to abide by the guidelines that can save you from Panda or Penguin attacks in future.

Some of the most important pieces of advice to abide by include :

Stay away from using hidden text or links
Say 'No' to cloaking or deceptive redirects
Stop sending automated queries to Google
Avoid using substantially duplicate content across multiple domains or sub domains
Make your affiliate sites content-rich to provide value to the user
Avoid underhand tricks to steal your way to the top of search results
Avoid participating in dubious link schemes
Don't use unauthorized software programs to submit pages
Create web pages primarily for people, not for search engines

You've seen the attacks of Google's Panda. You've also faced the wrath of the Penguin : the new inmate from Google's zoo. And you never know how many more are yet to arrive on the scene. It's just the right time to quickly analyze what you're actually doing and how you can get rid of things that violate Google's quality guidelines. Act in time so you don't have to repent in future.

Did you see any major change in your site's organic traffic over the last two days? Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Until now, Google Panda updates used to happen after an interval of every 5-7 weeks. It's the first time that Google updated its Panda algorithm (with version 3.6) only after an eight day's gap. Now, there are confirmed reports that Google rolled out Panda 3.6 on April 27. Panda 3.5 was launched on April 19. Can webmasters expect to have Panda updates so frequently?

Shortly after Panda 3.5, Google had rolled out its first Penguin algorithmic update on April 24. It seems webmasters are now caught up in the midst of Google's Panda and Penguin. I am highly suspicious whether Google has an entire herd of animals to pounce upon sites, one after another.

About Panda 3.6
According to Google officials, Panda 3.6 update was not a major update. This update only refreshed Google's Panda. Since it was only a minor update, as per Google's confirmation, it didn't impact a lot of sites. If you remember Panda 3.2 (which happened around January 18 this year) was also a minor data freshness update, it brought about losses and gains in search rankings for many. Google says that all of its Panda algorithmic updates are aimed at returning top quality search results to the user.

Google's Panda uses artificial intelligence. During any Panda algorithm update, human quality testers grade a large number of websites on the grounds of overall quality, time spent of site, design, download time etc.

Advice from Matt Cutts to Recover from a Panda Attack
Matt Cutts, via Google's official YouTube channel (Google Webmaster Central) continues to provide good pieces of tips and suggestions. If you're looking for resources related to crawling, indexing and rankings issues of a site, you should always keep visiting this YouTube channel for latest useful videos.

In a video, Matt clarified that any site that's hit by a Panda Update isn't actually providing real value to the user. And if you are ready to fix the issues that caused the downgrade, it's not going to be very tough.

Even a couple of poor quality web pages can cause harm to the entire site. If Google's Panda finds stuff that's not very useful, it might impact the overall search rankings of a site. That's why it's crucial to find those bad apples and remove them before they spoil the whole bunch.

Here's what Matt has to say to Panda victims :'Fat Panda' Hates 'Thin Content'
Think content comes in many forms. If multiple URLs on your site contain similar content, you have thin content. If you have similar pieces of content on many of your domains, it's also a case of having thin content. Whether your site's content is 'true duplicate' or 'near duplicate', you're going to be on Google's radar. Excessive navigation and repeated use of images also results into hampering the content quality of site. The first thing that you need to do to recover from a Panda attack is get rid of all the low quality pages on your site. Second, you should focus on the increasing the uniqueness of your site's content.

Was your site hit by any of the Panda updates by Google? Please feel free to share your experiences in the comments section below.

After Google's Panda, it's the Penguin that's making webmasters feel scary. Google officials had pre-announced about this update. Google terms its new update (launched on April 24) as the Penguin Update. According to officials at Google, this update is rolled out to target those sites that indulge in web spam or don't abide by Google's quality guidelines.

Google's Matt Cutts had already warned about this update. He said that many Google engineers were already working on this. And this update would punish those sites that are overly SEO'ed. Now that the Penguin Update is fully alive, many webmasters have started to feel the heat, and get the burns.

The big question now is whether your site was also hit by this recent search algorithmic update. To find it out, you can simply log into your site's analytics and start studying the organic search traffic pattern immediately after April 24. Then, you should compare this with the search traffic your site got a day or two before. If there's a sharp drop in organic traffic immediately after April 24, it's clear that you've joined the line of the victims.

Given below are a few good pieces of advice you can use to recover or prevent being hit by Google's Penguin.

Don't Cheat Users
Whether your site was hit by the Penguin update or not, make it a point that you don't engage in deceitful behavior. While creating web pages, focus your mind on benefiting the user. Make sure the pages on your site provide real value to the user, solve their problems and make them happy. Avoid cloaking.

Avoid Shortcuts to Improve SEO
All of the last updates rolled out by Google clearly suggest that there's no magic formula or shortcut to improve your site's ranking overnight. Don't use cheap or dirty tricks to climb up the SEO ladder. At the same time, pay heed to Google's words that you shouldn't get caught up in SEO trends.

Build a Natural Backlinks Profile
Participating in dubious link building schemes can cost you heavily. Link or blog networks are already on Google's radar. Make sure the backlinks profile of your site doesn't look manipulative or suspicious to search engines. Most importantly, stay away from linking to web spammers, as it can impact your site's ranking negatively. Focus on building a natural looking backlinks profile.

Don't Send Automated Queries to Google
Sending automated queries to search engines via an unauthorized software program is strictly against Google's quality guidelines. If you use such software programs to submit pages or queries to search engines, you'll be a surefire target. Avoid these bad practices at all cost.

Get Rid of Duplicate Content Immediately
If you've several pages on subdomains on your site with considerably duplicate content, you should get rid of the same as quickly as possible. Forget about the days of the past. Now, you can never get away with having almost similar content (with little variation of keywords) on multiple pages or subdomains.

Google's Penguin Update is all about web spam. If your site was hit by this update, you should closely review your site and get rid of the spam activities as quickly as possible. Since this is an automatic penalty without any manual interference, you won't be able to file reconsideration requests. All you should do to recover your site is make it completely spam-free.

Was your site hit by the Penguin Update? Please feel free to talk back in comments.

One of the best ways to outrank organic search results is by optimizing your listing on Google places. The continuous rise of mobile internet is a clear signal that local SEO is much more important than ever. It's interesting to note that around 65% of all Americans use local search to find businesses near them. In addition, most of the local searchers convert really well. If your business isnrsquo;t yet listed on Google Places, you're losing a good amount of traffic and leads, that's going straight to your competition.

Only listing your business on Google Places isn't enough. In order to appear in the top 7 local results, you should know how you need to optimize your Google Places listing appropriately.

What's Your Completeness Score?
This is where most of the small businesses fail to make a hit. Though it's vital to fill out the essential details (company, street address, city, state, ZIP and main phone) of your business, it's the overall completeness % that makes a real difference. When you start to get your business listed on Google Places, you'll see as many as 20 different fields. Google Places offers you to fill out other details like email address, website, description, categories, hours of operations, payment options, photos, videos, additional details etc. The greater your completeness score is, the better will be your chances of getting listed in the top local results.

A more completed Google Places listing doesn't only increases your chances of ranking at the top, but it also looks more appealing to the user.

Title, Description and Categories
The business name field or the title field in your Google listing also allows you to include a few keywords or reference a location. For maximum local SEO benefits, it's a good idea add some reference of your business location. Next, you need to optimize the description part. Adding few keywords (that relate to your business) here and there helps. However, you should avoid overdoing SEO in any case. Finally, you need to tag some categories.

Google Places allows you to include up to five categories. Whether you add 2 or 3 or 5 categories, you need to make sure that the added categories are appropriate and relevant.

Wait, There's More!
According to SEO experts, search engines list businesses in local results based on the latter's popularity across the web. If you're a trustworthy business, people should be talking about it. That's why building buzz around your business also helps you with your local search results. That means, you need to engage your consumers so that they mention your business and leave reviews about the top quality of your services and products. There are several online directories where you can list your company information. What you should always keep in mind is that the business information across all those sites is complete and consistent.

Have a closer look at your competition's Google Places pages. Find out what they're doing and locate their citations. In any case, don't forget to list your business in top local directories.

Is your Google Places page properly optimized? Please feel free to talk back in comments.

Over-optimization is now the biggest SEO sin. There're confirmed reports that Google's planning a new algorithmic update. This time, the search engine leader will target those sites that over-optimize. Before it's really too late, you should make sure you're not overdoing SEO. If your website doesn't contribute to enhancing the web user's (searcher's) experience, you may face heavy penalties by Google. Over-optimization can lower your site's rankings as soon as the new search ranking update by Google is rolled out.

Given below are six places to find out whether you're over-optimizing your website -

#1. Meta Tags
Gone are the days when you could improve the search rankings of a site by repeating or inserting multiple keywords in the meta tags (meta title, meta description, meta keywords) on web pages. Uniqueness of meta tags has become more important than ever. If you want to avoid over-optimization penalties, you need to closely review the meta tags on your web pages. Whether you have your in-house SEO team or work with a SEO agency, you should make sure your site's meta tags are not keyword-stuffed.

#2. URL Strings
Repeating keywords in the URL strings of your site is yet another sign of aggressive SEO. There are many webmasters who stuff keywords into their site's URL strings just for the sake of ranking higher in search engines. This is a bad SEO practice. Instead, you should try to make your URLs 'short' and 'unique'.

#3. Content Body
Next, you need to check out the keyword density in the content body of your web pages. Any keyword density that's more than 1% - 2% is over-optimization. You might face Google search penalties, if you include too many keywords in your content copy, articles or posts. The best idea is to use multiple variations of keywords rather than repeating the same keywords or phrases over and over again. At the same time, bolding keyword terms in your copy is also looks shady and is seen as a sign of over-optimization.

There are several free keyword analyzer tools that you can use. Some of these that I can recommend include the Keyword Density Analyzer tool (by SEO Book) and Keyword Density SEO tool (by SEO Chat).

#4. Anchor Text
Webmasters have obsessed over anchor text for years. Earlier, search engines like Google paid good attention to anchor text. It was due to the fact that anchor text tells the user where a link leads to. Due to manipulated linking, however, anchor text has lost its value. If you try to get tons of links for a highly searched keyword term, you might make search engines suspicious. That's why anchor text manipulation (i.e. over-optimization) is one of the biggest link building mistakes to avoid in the current situation.

#5. Backlinks Profile
Yet another place to look for signs of overdone or aggressive SEO is the backlinks profile of your website. Any backlinks profile that looks unnatural can quickly raise red flags. And the fact that Google is now targeting (and de-indexing) link networks is proof that the search engine won't spare any site that has a suspicious backlinks profile. So, brace yourself!

#6. Domain Name
Many webmasters whorsquo;re obsessed with SEO use generic keyword domains to rank at the top of search engines quickly. Domains that contain highly searched keywords have a huge impact on ranking. However, Google is now starting to differentiate between brand domain names and non-brand (or generic keyword) domain names. What's featured on a website is a lot more important than what keywords its domain contains.

Find out whether your site is overly SEO'ed before it's too late. Also feel free to leave your comments or share your opinions.