Google Algorithm Change Predictions in 2012 – Prepare your Website for the New Year 2012

2012, in my opinion, will see a decent proportion of Google’s updates refining the Panda update. Google is putting more and more emphasis on brands, with bigger brands getting more favourable results. Especially after the Panda updates – with similar content, we saw rankings drop for smaller brands (the review centre), while big brands remain untouched (trip advisor).
Here are a few things you can do to prepare your websites for 2012 algorithm updates.
1. Work on your brand, this is going to be big – in 2012, if it’s not going to be more content updates for Panda algorithm its going to be brand. Brand has been talked about for a while now, but the panda update really put an emphasis on this. Work on your own brand and Google will love you.

Panda Update

2. Review your website for duplicate and poor content – it’s not too late. Remove the large amounts of poor content you created to take advantage of Google before the Panda update. Replace them with quality pieces that are unique, helpful and engaging. More Panda will follow in 2012 to see how good you’ve been.
3. Engage socially – in 2010 everyone was talking about how social is going to affect SEO in 2011, who knew content was going to be the main focus? However, Social is not going anywhere, if not next year it will be the year after. Start early to avoid disappointment later.
4. Quality over quantity for links – An old one, but a good one. Google will eventually crack down the back link game, the first ones to go will be those with spammy back links and sites with enormous back links to referring domain ratios. Go after a few quality links and spend more time acquiring them.
5. Kept yourself up to date – Last but least, keep yourself up to date from the official source. Two websites you need to add to your RSS feeds or visit regularly are from Google themselves, the Inside Search Blog and Official Google Blog. The more you know, the better position you will be in to make changes.
2011 Dates when changes had taken place:
* Panda 1.0 – Feb 23, 2011 – Initial panda algorithm release, affecting 12% of search results.
* Panda 2.0 – Apr 11, 2011 – Rolled out to English search queries worldwide, integration of new signals.
* Panda 2.1 – May 9, 2011 – Minor changed not discussed by Google.
* Panda 2.2 – Jun 21, 2011 – Continued updates to Panda algorithm, updates were separate from main index and not in real-time
* Panda 2.3 – Jul 23, 2011 – Minor update to the Panda ranking factors.
* Panda 2.4 – Aug 12, 2011 – Rolled out to non-English search queries. 6-9% of sites affected in new countries.
* Panda 2.5 – Sep 28, 2011 – Changes unclear, huge ranking losses reported on some sites.
Minor panda updates affecting roughly 2% of search queries.
* Minor Panda updates – Oct 5, 2011
* Minor Panda updates – Oct 3, 2011
* Minor Panda updates – Oct 13, 2011
* Minor Panda updates – Nov 18, 2011