Yes, it might be a little hard to believe, but Google rolls out its first Panda update exactly one year ago today on February 24, 2011. Panda was designed to be a "filter" that would penalize content farms and other websites on the Internet that were deemed as being too "thin" to be useful to web users.

Not surprisingly, Google Panda (and its various updated versions) has created many problems for professional SEO specialists and webmasters alike. An infographic has been put together by Search Engine Land and BlueGlass that does a great job of outlining exactly how Panda works and what impact it has had on the Internet at large.

The first version of Panda was designed to target "scraper sites" that copied copyright content from other sites. Google says that 12% of searches in the United States were affected. Subsequent updates expanded language support and made "minor changes" to the algorithm. Now that we are a full twelve months after the initial Panda update, only 13% of those polled by SE Roundtable said they have fully recovered. Only 29% have recovered partially and a whopping 58% say they have not recovered from Panda.

And Panda hasn't only impacted smaller "scraper sites" and "content farms" either, as bigger players like About, Yahoo, and Demand Media have all had their ranking significantly impacted by Google's bamboo-munching creature. So, where do you stand with Panda? Have you recovered? What are you doing to avoid getting hit by the filter?

Most search engine optimization experts will likely tell you about the importance of backlinks, keyword structure, and all the other fundamentals of good SEO. Another topic that comes up all the time is that of sitemaps and most people will tell you that you should have a good sitemap for your website that is kept up to date. But that may not necessarily be the case.

Over on Search Engine Roundtable, they're highlighting a thread that discusses what happens if you choose to remove the XML sitemap completely from Webmaster tools. Conventional wisdom will say that this will have an adverse effect on your overall search engine rankings, but that might not be the case.

In fact, John Mueller of Google says that removing the URLs from a sitemap won't really hurt your rankings, because sitemap files are used "for discovering new URLs and recognizing when existing ones have changed; we don't remove URLs from the index that aren't in the Sitemap file." But that only talks about removing URLs from the sitemap and not removing the sitemap altogether.

That said, it seems that adding and removing sitemaps doesn't "dramatically impact a website," as long as you "make sure your internal link structure is good and the iste has no big technical issues." That insight comes from forum moderator GoodROI.

What do you think? Are sitemaps still important?

When it comes to search engine optimization, there is literally a never-ending list of things that you can do. Some strategies are more effective than others, but a great number of them also happen to be very time-consuming. The irony is that many people forget to take care of the little things. It's like deciding to go on a road trip, only to forget where you left the keys.

Over on Search Engine Watch, Josh McCoy has compiled a list of eight SEO tips that you can accomplish in fifteen minutes or less. Regardless of whether you have a blog, a company website, or a resource site, you'd be foolish not to go through these eight basic steps.

You'll still want to pay attention to things like keyword density and inbound deep-links, of course, but these eight simple steps are so basic that they simply should not be ignored.

The tips include such things as remembering to review your robots.txt file to see if you're withholding pages from search engines, reviewing the most frequently linked pages on your site, looking for duplicate title elements in Google Webmaster Tools, requesting anchor text changes from authority sites, and verifying your Google and Bing Local listings.

Google updates its search ranking algorithm as many as 500 times every year. Its Panda updates are a part of this continued effort. All Google wants is to provide web users with a superior quality searching experience. Since junk or low quality content is produced continuously, Google's Panda is ready to attack at the interval of every 5-7 weeks. The recent one, called Panda 3.2 algorithm update, is only the beginning of several updates that Google plans to do this year. But are you really geared up to survive these attacks?

Creating a healthy web eco-system is Google's main goal. Since Google's the world's most preferred search engine, it can never afford to dissatisfy users that use it to find solutions (results) to their problems (queries).

In short, Google wants you to create high quality websites. Here are a couple of questions that will help you define a high quality website.

Does your website have multiple articles on a similar topic (with little keyword variations)?
Do users really trust your website?
Is the content on your website well-edited?
Do the articles on your website really help users?
Does your website have articles that users can recommend to others?
Do you display a lot of ads on your website?
Do you share insightful analysis and interesting information on your site?
How would your content look, if it appears in print?

If you don't want Google's Panda to attack or hit your website, you should never ignore the issues that the above-mentioned questions throw light upon.

The second important point is to satisfy your target audience's needs. No matter what business goals you want to achieve, you can never do it at the cost of making your target audiences unhappy. In fact, you should focus on creating content that provides quick solutions to their everyday problems.

And the only way to fulfill your audience's requirements is to find out who they are. Know their interests, aspirations, likes, dislikes and other behavioral attributes. Unless you know what an ideal customer for your business look like, you won't be able to offer what they want from you. Do the profiling right away!

To make sure you don't get hit by the Google's Panda, you need to keep a close watch on the analytics of your website. Log in to your Google analytics account to get the current picture of where your site stands. Metrics like time on site, bounce rate, exit rate, visitor loyalty can tell you a lot as to whether web users really find your website helpful and trust you as a valuable resource. If you have some serious usability issues with your website, fix them as quickly as possible.

If you want to escape Panda attacks in future, you should start building a strong community of followers (and advocates) around your brand. That's one of the most important pieces of advice you can use. Though it takes time and effort, building a community of loyal followers can become your shield to ward off the sudden effects of a Google Panda update.

Don't wait or it can be too late!

Was your website ever Panda-slapped? Let's hear the story in the comment section below.

It's been confirmed that Google updated its Panda on January 18 this month. Webmasters are already busy discussing the effects of Google's recent Panda 3.2 algorithmic update, which was actually halted last year due to the holiday season. Google tweeted in December that they were not going to update their Panda since it was holiday time. Certainly, it was like a holiday present for webmasters around the world.

Though Google officials said that this is only a minor update (a data refresh), webmasters noticed alterations in their search rankings. The recent Panda update is only one of 500 ranking algorithmic changes that Google makes every year. So, you can hope to see more of such updates, usually at the interval of every 5-8 weeks.

Previous Panda Update Schedule
Counting the recent one, Google has updated its Panda ten times till now. Let's have a look at all of these updates between 2011 and 2012.

Panda Update 1.0 : Feb. 24, 2011
Panda Update 2.0 : April 11, 2011
Panda Update 2.1 : May 10, 2011
Panda Update 2.2 : June 16, 2011
Panda Update 2.3 : July 23, 2011
Panda Update 2.4 : August 12, 2011
Panda Update 2.5 : September 28, 2011
Panda Update 2.5.1 : October 19, 2011
Panda Update 2.5.2 : October 13, 2011
Panda Update 2.5.3 : October 9, 2011
Panda Update 3.1 : November 18, 2011
Panda Update 3.2 : January 18, 2012

Google has declared time and again that it strives to provide a superior quality search experience to users. All these Panda algorithm updates focus on enhancing the Google rankings of high quality sites, while poor or low quality websites are pushed down the SERPs.

What a Few Webmasters Noticed
Though I didn't notice any impact on my own sites, there are webmasters who pointed out rises or drops in their organic search traffic. Many webmasters said that they retained the traffic that was lost during November Google Panda update last year. Many declared a 30% - 40% increase in their daily organic traffic. There are others (including me) who didn't notice any big change though.

Looking for Panda Survival Tips?
Many more Panda updates will be your way this year. You really need to make sure that these updates by Google don't do any collateral damage to your website organic traffic. If your website was Panda-slapped, given below are few essential tips that you can follow.

Diversify your website traffic
Use actionable KPIs to calculate success
Devote time to building a community around your brand
Fix the usability issues on your website quickly
Conduct a content audit (and remove useless content)
Say a firm 'No' to low quality link building
Understand that good quality content is still the king

If a higher percentage of your website's traffic comes from Google's organic searches, you need to become even more vigilant. Start implementing the necessary changes to your website right away, because therer's no guarantee that the next Panda algorithmic update will also be minor one.