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Tips To Cop -Up With Phantom-2 Update for Improved Rankings

google phantom update 2The morning of May 9, 2013 was full of surprises for the SEO masters and web owners with an eye upon the search results ranking. Some websites were ranking better while some had slipped down in search results but the actual cause was unknown. Ranking reshuffle was noticed even about 60%+. I had received several calls by 10am; each enquiry was about the cause or any update. But, frankly speaking, I too was like others. As the multiple hunts including one by Glenn Gabe were on to know the cause, result came out soon with confirmation of brewing of new update started on May 8th, 2013. On digging deep, I came to know that Google secretly rolled out ‘Phantom’ while the SEO community was expecting Penguin 2.0. Phantom was concerned only about the content quality but not the links quality. And, after two years since Phantom, we noticed the new serial update named Phantom-2 rolled out on May 3, 2015.

Phantom-2 – A Secret Algorithm Update by Google:

Again, the dawn of May 3, 2015 was full of surprises for ranking gains and losses but this time, the clouds of uncertainty disappeared soon as Google itself acknowledged the rolling out of Phantom II to moderate "ranking signals" again. The impact was considerable but Google didn't reveal the nature of changes made in ranking signals. However, data researchers found out some trends for Phantom 2 penalty: Poor onsite experience for users; Website with special focus upon “how to”; Low rank pages across the domains.

It Is Easy To Cop -Up With Phantom-2 Update:

I know, your concern would be to safeguard your website from Phantom 2 penalty. Following tips and ranking factors will help you have Phantom 2 secured website:

  1. Minimize the tag pages.
  2. You should have thin content that is longer and unique. It will also help to curb the possible -ve impacts of Panda 4.2 Google’s update introduced on July 17, 2015.
  3. Numbers of pages viewed and dwell time both the signals are accountable for good ranking; you should focus to improve user engagement.
  4. Don’t put multiple videos on single page with little content.
  5. Don’t insert auto playing video; this traditional trick to attract viewer wouldn’t work anymore for SMO.
  6. Go for content audit to remove duplicate content; if necessary, support it with canonical tag.
  7. Do value to viewers’ comments. You shouldn’t pile up the old and irrelevant comments; better, you remove these.
  8. Pop up ads disturbs the user’s attention and he tends to bounce to another website; and Google accounts the bounce rate.