Google's 'Panda update' to differentiate websites

Bangalore, Mar 5: The last week of February saw Internet search-engine giant Google, launch a new algorithm to filter out shallow-quality content websites from coming atop better-quality sites. This update that is meant to provide better content to the users, is called the 'Panda' update, named after an engineer in Google.

The update has affected more than 10 per cent of all search results and has left many websites without a substantial traffic.

Panda Update comes at a crucial time for Google when users are befuddled as to whether the standards of search on Google has diminished. Earlier this week, there were reports that though Google has maintained its numero uno status in terms of search engines, but for the first time its search percentage has gone below 90.

In an interview published by wired.com, Amit Singhal, search quality guru of Google Inc has said that even with the implementation of this algorithm, the process of isolating a shallow site from a better one is arduous. He also informed about the way they carried their process of identifying sites.

Matt Cutts of Google, in that same interview said, "There was an engineer who came up with a rigorous set of questions, everything from. “Do you consider this site to be authoritative? Would it be okay if this was in a magazine? Does this site have excessive ads?" Questions along those lines."

In that same interview Singhal informed that they took the suggestions and implemented an algorithm to discriminate shallow-content sites from better ones.

While they are sure that the method isn't entirely fool-proof, but they are sure that it is better than what they previously had.

The effectiveness of the new algorithm remains to be seen and what more is how Google identifies shallow-content sites that hide behind a glitzy and glamorous look.

OneIndia News