Multilingual SEO and Google’s Panda 4.0: Has Anything Changed?

“Google’s New Update Has Stripped eBay of 80% of its Best Search Listings.”

Headlines like this are enough to make any website manager, online marketer and even CEO stop in his or her tracks.

When your business depends on organic search to bring customers to your website and boost your revenue potential (and, really, what business doesn’t?), it’s important to know what you can do to avoid any devastating penalties.

Google’s Panda 4.0 is the latest update from the giant search company that’s sending businesses into a tizzy. But what is it? And how does it impact your multilingual SEO strategy? Here’s the lowdown.

Some significant changes

Basically, the point of the Panda update is to rid the Internet of “thin,” low-quality content. The goal is to reward those who create original, educational content that engages and informs the intended audiences.

Having too much low-quality content is what eBay is accused of. According to the same Business Insider article above, eBay had very thin landing pages for search results. Web surfers landing on an eBay page often found virtually no content on it other than links to buy the very thing they were searching for. No added information, benefits, reviews, etc. This is the type of “thin” content Google discourages.

This poses some challenges from a multilingual SEO standpoint. If you translate thin content and use it multiple times on each localized version of your site, it exacerbates the vagueness of it and can derail your SEO efforts.

Adjusting your multilingual SEO strategy

A one-size-fits-all solution to website translation may not suffice. Localization matters now more than ever. It may take a little more work, but in the end, the rewards can be great. Here are three tips to help improve your multilingual SEO game post Panda.

1. Have unique content on your localized websites

One way to easily adjust your copy for each website is to work with in-country linguists. Only native speakers know how to translate your content best so that it strikes a chord with locals. They understand how Web users in your target region refer to your products and services and can align the tone and positioning correctly.

In some cases, you may want to transcreate your original Web copy for other targeted sites. This is where the copy is completely re-created by expert copywriting linguists who can adjust your copy correctly so that it aligns best with your target market. Check out Transcreation: More than just marketing translations .

For e-commerce sites, it’s a good idea to switch up your product descriptions. Build out unique and thoughtful descriptions—avoiding non-specific ones like “small, blue, 4 x 4,” etc. If you do this, you’re likely to find these words duplicated across your products, (which may result in a penalty).

2. Create valuable content

Along with it being unique and well-thought-out, another rule that Panda enforces is that your content must be valuable. Stuffing copy with keywords will do a lot more harm than good.

How can you add value to your localized website and improve multilingual SEO?

How about adding some localized videos to your content? Video is a valuable tool for marketers and has been proven to increase SEO effectiveness in general. Just be sure that your videos are localized and meaningful to your target audience.

Other ideas include adding translated user-generated content like product reviews, social media feeds and more to your site. User-generated content can give your business a local feel and add value to your customers since this type of information is generally more trusted than corporate copy.

Grammar is also part of the valuable content picture. Google can recognize poor content with misspellings and grammar mistakes. It can also tell if your translations are low quality. Jumbled, poorly translated copy that doesn’t sound like it was written by native speakers can put your website at risk for penalty.

3. Localize your keywords

Remember that you always need to localize your keywords as well. It won’t work to simply take your existing terms and translate them word for word. Web surfers across locales search on and refer to your products and services differently.

If you’re having trouble deciding which keywords to use for your target markets, let a language service provider like Sajan help. We can identify keywords that make sense for your company for each target culture and adjust them appropriately.

Hopefully this has helped clear up any Panda 4.0 and multilingual SEO concerns you may have.

Looking for more website localization tips? Check out this best practice brief.

Has Google’s Panda 4.0 update impacted your multilingual SEO strategy?

d“Google’s New Update Has Stripped eBay of 80% of its Best Search Listings.”

Headlines like this are enough to make any website manager, online marketer and even CEO stop in his or her tracks.

When your business depends on organic search to bring customers to your website and boost your revenue potential (and, really, what business doesn’t?), it’s important to know what you can do to avoid any devastating penalties.

Google’s Panda 4.0 is the latest update from the giant search company that’s sending businesses into a tizzy. But what is it? And how does it impact your multilingual SEO strategy? We’re giving you the lowdown on it all (so you don’t end up in eBay’s situation).

Some significant changes

Basically, the point of the Panda update is to rid the Internet of “thin,” low-quality content. The goal is to reward those who create original, educational content that engages and informs the intended audiences.

Having too much low-quality content is what eBay is accused of. According to the same Business Insider article above, eBay had very thin landing pages for search results. Web surfers landing on an eBay page often found virtually no content on it other than links to buy the very thing they were searching for. No added information, benefits, reviews, etc. This is the type of “thin” content Google discourages.

This poses some challenges from a multilingual SEO standpoint. If you translate thin content and use it multiple times on each localized version of your site, it exacerbates the vagueness of it and can derail your SEO efforts.

Adjusting your multilingual SEO strategy

A one-size-fits-all solution to website translation may not suffice. Localization matters now more than ever. It may take a little more work, but in the end, the rewards can be great. Here are three tips to help improve your multilingual SEO game post Panda.

1. Have unique content on your localized websites

One way to easily adjust your copy for each website is to work with in-country linguists. Only native speakers know how to translate your content best so that it strikes a chord with locals. They understand how Web users in your target region refer to your products and services and can align the tone and positioning correctly.

In some cases, you may want to transcreate your original Web copy for other targeted sites. This is where the copy is completely re-created by expert copywriting linguists who can adjust your copy correctly so that it aligns best with your target market. Check out Transcreation: More than just marketing translations for more information.

For e-commerce sites, it’s a good idea to switch up your product descriptions. Build out unique and thoughtful descriptions—avoiding non-specific ones like “small, blue, 4 x 4,” etc. If you do this, you’re likely to find these words duplicated across your products, (which may result in a penalty).

2. Create valuable content

Along with it being unique and well-thought-out, another rule that Panda enforces is that your content must be valuable. Stuffing copy with keywords will do a lot more harm than good.

How can you add value to your localized website and improve multilingual SEO?

How about adding some localized videos to your content? Video is a valuable tool for marketers and has been proven to increase SEO effectiveness in general. Just be sure that your videos are localized and meaningful to your target audience.

Other ideas include adding translated user-generated content like product reviews, social media feeds and more to your site. User-generated content can give your business a local feel and add value to your customers since this type of information is generally more trusted than corporate copy.

Grammar is also part of the valuable content picture. Google can recognize poor content with misspellings and grammar mistakes. It can also tell if your translations are low quality. Jumbled, poorly translated copy that doesn’t sound like it was written by native speakers can put your website at risk for penalty.

3. Localize your keywords

Remember that you always need to localize your keywords as well. It won’t work to simply take your existing terms and translate them word for word. Web surfers across locales search on and refer to your products and services differently.

If you’re having trouble deciding which keywords to use for your target markets, let us help. We can identify keywords that make sense for your company for each target culture and adjust them appropriately.

Hopefully this has helped clear up any Panda 4.0 and multilingual SEO concerns you may have. And of course, if you need some consulting or updates to your localized website, we’re here to help.

Looking for more website localization tips? Check out this best practice brief.

Has Google’s Panda 4.0 update impacted your multilingual SEO strategy?

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Multilingual SEO and Google’s Panda 4.0: Has Anything Changed?