Google Panda was a key update to the Google search algorithm designed to minimize the presence of webspam in search results. This modification sought to reduce the search rankings of content farms and other low-quality websites.
Google Panda was first released in 2011 with the aim of restoring high-quality websites to the premier positions on the search engine results pages.
Previously, content farms were achieving high rankings because they prioritized aggressive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) over providing valuable content to online readers. The new Panda algorithm was specifically designed to target these content farms, alongside instances of thin content, duplicate posts, and pages overloaded with a large volume of paid advertising.
The core objective was to elevate the rankings for deserving sites that featured original, deeply informative, and well-researched content. Its internal quality guidelines heavily screened for measures of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Panda can sometimes affect user-generated content, but typically only when it involves spammy guest posts or other forms of inferior material.