My latest article at Practical Ecommerce, read it in full here.
Google’s so-called “Farmer/Panda” algorithm update rewards original, high-quality site content. Aggregators suffer under Panda, as do ecommerce merchants who rely on generic product descriptions that are not unique to their sites, or who offer poor content generally. We’ve addressed the Farmer/Panda update here previously, at “Google’s ‘Farmer’ Algorithm and What It Means for Ecommerce SEO,” and with my three-part case study on one store’s struggles with that algorithm change.
The importance of the Farmer/Panda update has spawned discussions on structuring a site for search engine bots, versus making it accessible for human consumers. That discussion is the focus of a session — “Panda vs. Human: Advance eCommerce SEO & UX” — at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago on Nov. 14 – 18. The session is potentially interesting, as it reminds us that products are purchased by humans, not search engine robots. But without the search engines, humans likely wouldn’t find a retailer’s products to begin with.
Originally posted on Web PieRat.