The Year of the Panda Search Update in a Mobile World
In terms of search engine evolution the year 2011 is not interesting at all. There were no new breakthrough search engines that saw the light of day. The biggest player in search did spring cleaning that eventually has become known as the Panda update. The update has been an iterative process throughout the year keeping many webmasters in agony.
Even though the new search engine that we are all waiting for did not arrive this year it does not mean Web search is not evolving. During the past couple of years the Web has been ruled by mobile technologies. The smartphone and the tablet is the point where the real deal has been happening lately.
All kinds of search tools and information lookup and exchange apps are available for smartphone and tablet users. However, as Galaxy Tab users we are considerably disappointed with the variety of search tools for Android powered tablets. Once again you find yourself using the world's most powerful search engine. Is that bad or good?
Well, it depends. It is always good to have an alternative. Of course you can fire up Bing on your tablet, but the truth is Bing is not nearly as good as Google search and on the mobile Web these competitors are even further apart.
This leads us to the fact that the Panda update was the thing in search in 2011. We all know updates to Google's search index and changes to its search algorithm are top secrets and that is easily understandable. However, it is common knowledge that the goal of the Panda update is to eliminate content farms, content scrapers and Websites with little or no unique content. We also know from experience with one of our clients that the quality of links and the number of links is an important factor.
At the core the Panda update is an update of common sense and Google is definitely becoming better in using artificial intelligence to help us when we search. It is difficult not to admire Google for everything they have done in improving search in the past thirteen years. Google search is faster and produces better results with more alternative search options than ever before, both on the traditional Web and the mobile Web. That is something, isn't it?
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