One of the bigger pieces of news — certainly for webmasters and SEOs — from our SMX Advanced conference this week is that Google will soon be releasing version 2.2 of the Panda algorithm update.
Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed that during Tuesday’s keynote question-and-answer session with Danny Sullivan. Cutts said that the update has been approved, hasn’t been rolled out yet, but that should happen soon.
Improved Scraper Detection
The next update will target a common webmaster complaint related to the original Panda/Farmer update: sites that scrape and re-publish content and are out-ranking the original source of the content.
“A change has been approved that should help with that issue,” Cutts said.
He also reiterated some previous Panda-related information:
- Google will continue to tweak and update the Panda algorithm.
- There’s no exact date yet for when Panda will launch fully beyond English-language searches.
Recovering From Panda
Cutts also said there have been no manual exceptions made to sites that were wrongly affected, but there have been recompilations of data that may have helped some sites.
In particular, he noted that the Panda algorithm is run against Google’s entire index of pages on an infrequent basis, in order to tag certain sites that should be dinged by it, as opposed to some of its automatic spam detection tools.
For example, Google’s constantly scanning for pages that might use hidden text. If it spots them, then it may assess a penalty.
Google is not constantly scanning for pages that might get hit by its Panda penalty. Instead, Google manually runs that algorithm, which then determines web sites that should be hit by it.
This also means that making changes to a site hit by Panda won’t produce any immediate change in Google. Instead, such changes — if they are beneficial — wouldn’t get registered by Google until the next Panda assessment.
When is Panda run? Google didn’t say. But it seems to be something that runs every few weeks and in association with when the algorithm is improved (Panda 1.0, Panda 2.0, Panda 2.1, Panda 2.2, etc.)
More Information
For additional coverage of SMX Advanced, see our live blog roundups from day one and day two. For more about the Panda update, see our stories below:
Panda Update Must-Reads
- Google Forecloses On Content Farms With “Panda” Algorithm Update, Feb. 2011
- Your Site’s Traffic Has Plummeted Since Google’s Panda Update. Now What?, March 2011
- Google Speaks More About Panda Update, March 2011
- The Panda Update: New Information From Google and The Latest from SMX West, March 2011
- Lessons Learned at SMX West: Google’s Panda Update, White Hat Cloaking & Link Building, March 2011
- Panda 2.0: Google Rolls Out Panda Update Internationally & Incorporates Searcher Blocking Data, April 2011
- It’s Panda Update 2.1, Not Panda 3.0, Google Says, May 2011
- Impacted By Google’s Panda Update? Google Asks You To Consider This…, May 2011
More Panda News & Recovery Tips
- Google: We’ve Made No “Significant” Changes To The Panda Update, March 2011
- Google Forecloses On Content Farms With “Panda” Algorithm Update
- When Pandas Attack: Online Retailers Need To React, March 2011
- 5 New Tactics For SEO Post-Panda, April 2011
- Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s Panda Algorithm Change?, Feb. 26, 2011
- Winners & Losers As Panda 2.0 Goes Global? eHow, Bing’s Ciao.co.uk & More, April 2011
- New York Times: Yes, Google’s Panda Update Hit NYT-Owned About.com, April 2011
- Yellow Pages SEO In The Post-Panda World, April 2011
- Hitwise Data Pegs Panda Impact On Demand Media Sites At 40%, April 2011
- Panda Update: Google Lowers The Boom On eHow.com, April 2011
- Demand Media: Panda’s Impact On eHow.com “Significantly Overstated,” April 2011
Stock image from Shutterstock.com. Used under license.
Related Topics: Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Panda Update Must-Reads | Panda Update News | Panda Update Tips | Top News
Why is it called Panda update? It can be called lion, tiger, cat or dog update. Is it because of Navneet Panda, a Google software engineer? or any other reason behind.
:)
“Sites that scrape and re-publish content and are out-ranking the original source of the content”…
I guess they will target Google Shopping for lack of unique content? ;)
anyone know where to find API to panda engine?
I think if you have dupe content on your site, its a good time to remove it or re-write it to make it unique
Google has way too much power over search. Overdue to be regulated as a monopoly.
I know several publishers who were wrongly crucified by Google and their Panda.
Zero recourse, no modification, no customer support.
For a company that claims such transparency and integrity and often picks at government for failing in such ways, the entire Panda fiasco stands as an example that Google is just as bad.
The scraper issue is massive and when viewed in conjunction with a site-wide demotion for whatever vague and arguably bogus reasoning Google has. Will Panda 2.x be any better? I doubt it. Google like much of the Sillycon Valley thinks they are smarter than everyone and even when confronted with reality, they can’t admit to their massive failures.
Unique content? Google is the biggest thief of original content on the planet. What they don’t steal directly, they have been financing for years (pirated software, books, music, etc.).
Does Google have ANY original content outside of their regular blog posts/advertisements and 140 characters of Twitter?
one little thing which has been a key question to myself.. how are you ( google ) going to determine..wheather this content ( new one )has been “scraped” or that content ( old one ) ? .. just from Archive of that website ?
The initial Panda Update may have yielded some results. But the fact is that Google still has a huge quality issue with its search results.
Bing on the other hand appears to be gaining ground… and this is reflected in the market share numbers and in the general perception.
So, Google needs to speed up… and if that means launching more Panda Updates, so be it!
Premium member since 10/2010
Divy@ T@ndon
Why is it called Panda? 2 Words…Ski-doosh!
Premium member since 10/2010
@thePPCguy,
I have actually found Bing results sifting through negative-is-positive results. You know what I am talking about….”Is XXX a scam?” Search Results, “Is XXX a scam?” Content: “Of course its not its the best way to make money its the most wonderful program in the world! rant rant rant”.
Took me 6 pages of SERPS with multiple searches to find what I wanted on Google, 1st page with Bing (though some of those false ones were in there).
Premium member since 10/2010
Good lord its too early, that previous comment mean to say found Bing Results better at sifting through negative-is-positive results. And with that I am done for the day!
So probably Google Places should disappear from the results? At least for several countries, including Bulgaria, they are using scraped results from local partners :)
I remember looking for a how-to advice and never actually found it in google. They penalized ehow terribly, but all the bad ehow copycats were ranking on the first 3 pages (never went past that).
Honestly. I miss ehow. At least they did what they do well.
Is it true that site were marked as “probably never would improve”. That’s terrible terrible terrible! It kind of horrifies and disgusts me all that the same time. It’s just wrong wrong wrong.
“Google is not constantly scanning for pages that might get hit by its Panda penalty. ”
Is it accurate to call Panda a penalty, as opposed to a new method of scoring pages?
For what it’s worth, Panda led to reduced traffic for some pages or sections of our site, but other pages or sections have gained traffic since the February and April Panda roll-outs. To me, that suggests a change in the scoring formula, not a penalty.
@Durant Imboden in my experience (as CTO of a tech news site that’s been badly hit by Panda), this definitely behaves more like a penalty for us. As far as I can tell, the reason scraper sites are now ranking above our own stories is not because they’ve been given a boost – but our domain has been given a site-wide penalty, demoting us across all content.
Will be curious to see if this update actually improves this, or simply makes the problem less visible.