A payday loan may provide a reprieve to people who are short on cash, but not where Google is concerned. This is especially true for website owners and online strategists that don’t practice good content, link building that Google Panda likes, and white hat SEO, in general. This is because the Payday Loan algorithm targets “spammy queries”. And because it has no relation to the Panda and Penguin, whatsoever, webmasters have to look out for a lot of restrictions that Google dishes out.

According to Matt Cutts, Google’s head of web spam, Payday Loan 2.0 and Payday Loan 3.0 differ in terms of the signals each one is after. The former targets spammy websites, while the latter targets spammy queries. Regardless, if the keywords used are considered spammy by Google’s standards, a website would still feel the effects of Payday Loan, no matter how white hat its SEO strategies are.

What is the impact of Payday Loan on your website?

The term Payday Loan, originated from the niche industry that commonly accumulates spammy websites, such as finance, payday loan companies, and insurance. If your website falls under any of these categories, expect to feel the sting of the update, even if you follow all of Google’s guidelines to the letter.

If you’ve already seen a drop in your rankings, it could be that the Payday Loan update has caught up with you. Aside from finance-related sites, the algorithm also goes after queries on pornography, finance and insurance related.

Because it was rolled out on a global scale, signals from international queries are also taken into account. This caused several countries to be affected. In the United States, around 0.3% of U.S. queries have taken a hit. On the other hand, queries in Turkey that have been affected has gone up by 4%, which is a lot compared to that of the United States. This shows that Google is serious about cracking down international spam.

Is there cause for worries?

If you’re website has all the makings of an easy hit, you definitely need to rethink your strategies. Then again, if your niche falls under the spammy industries, you probably can’t do much about it, but continue to follow white hat SEO practices. Once Google realises that your website has a high quality, your site will be spared from further drop in rankings. Know that Google’s intention of rolling out the Payday Loan algorithm is to weed out low quality website from the good ones. Those sites that have good content, lots of social interaction and useful information can rest easy.

What does the Payday Loan algorithm mean for online users?

Anyone who has made a search regarding payday loans, financial schemes, insurance concerns and pornographic materials will see disappointing search returns. It’s either, low quality sites will appear on their query or none at all. After all, Google’s intention is to keep such sites from popping up. This makes the payday loan not much of a payday for users.

Until affected niche industry websites make changes that the Payday Loan algorithm will like, they won’t have a room in search returns and their target users won’t find them. It can be a little inconvenient on both ends of the spectrum, but, if this means better online experience, then it’s all good.