Google Confirms Panda 3.3 Update, Plus Changes To How It Evaluates Links, Local Search Rankings & Much More

Feb 27, 2012 at 3:38pm ET by Matt McGee

Google has confirmed a new Panda update at the same time that it's announcing 40 search updates that happened in February (or are in progress right now). It would be all but impossible to fully sum up the full slate of changes here, but there are a few that seem especially noteworthy and will no doubt produce a lot of speculation among search marketers. Here's a look at the ones that stand out to me: Panda 3.3 Update Here's what Google says about its latest Panda-related change: Panda update. This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitiv [...]

Infographic: The Google Panda Update, One Year Later

Feb 24, 2012 at 11:55am ET by Search Engine Land Infographics

One year ago, Google launched its "Panda Update" designed to filter low quality or "thin" content from its top search results. Below, our infographic produced in conjunction with BlueGlass covers how Panda works, what it impacted and the various updates from Panda 1.0 through Panda 3.2 that have happened along the way. After the infographic, you'll also find more information about the Panda Update ranging from in-depth analysis of how it works, "winners and losers" and well as recovery tips. (Note: An earlier version of this infographic listed scraper sites as something targeted by Pa [...]

Google Panda 3.2 Update Confirmed

Jan 26, 2012 at 9:47am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has confirmed reports of a Panda update with us. The company told us they have done a data refresh of the Google Panda algorithm about a week ago, and added that there were no additional signals or algorithm changes. This was only a data refresh. I saw reports over the past week or so of webmasters commenting about their rankings. Most were complaining that they lost rankings, but some said sites that were originally hit by Panda regained their traffic levels pre-Panda. This would explain the data refresh, where Google ran the algorithm and updated the sites that should or should not [...]

Google & Bing Have “Won A Major Victory” Over Content Farms, Study Says

Dec 16, 2011 at 3:41pm ET by Matt McGee

Search engines have "won a major victory" in their battle against so-called content farms. So says the current issue of New Scientist magazine, in an article that's also available online. New Scientist asked University of Glasgow computer scientist Richard McCreadie to study 50 search queries that are "known to be a target of content farmers." One example query given is "how to train for a marathon." McCreadie studied those queries in both March and August, and the magazine says "the results show that Google and Microsoft have won a major victory" against content farms. The results are s [...]

Google Panda Update 3.1: “Minor” One Made Live On November 18th

Nov 21, 2011 at 9:25am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google tweeted that they have pushed out a minor update to the Google Panda algorithm this past Friday afternoon. The update impacts less than one-percent of searches, which is why Google labelled this a "minor" update. There have been a number of updates since the 2.5 update on September 28th. We have been calling those updates Panda fluxes. Google is making a conscious effort to provide more weather reports for when they do major of minor updates with the search algorithm. Previous Panda Updates Here’s the Panda update schedule so far, as we’ve tracked and had confirmed by Goo [...]

Panda Update 3.0 Live & Panda “Flux”

Oct 19, 2011 at 4:46pm ET by Vanessa Fox

On around September 27th, Google launched what's being called 2.5 of its Panda algorithm. On October 5th, Google's Matt Cutts tweeted: "Weather report: expect some Panda-related flux in the next few weeks, but will have less impact than previous updates (~2%)." Panda-related flux? Indeed, this seems to be the case, with site owners reporting Panda-related changes on at least October 3rd and October 13th. In several cases, I saw sites with Google organic traffic declines on 9/27, recovery on 10/3, and decline again on 10/13. I talked to Google to find out more about the flux and what sit [...]

They’re Back! Google Issues Weather Report For Panda Update

Oct 5, 2011 at 2:52pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Google's Matt Cutts has just issued a "weather report" about upcoming changes to be expected from Google's Panda algorithm. If you're not familiar with algorithmic weather reports, sit back and learn. Because they're back, and that's a good thing. Before There Was Panda, There Was Florida At the end of 2003, Google released what became known as its Florida Update. Now kids, if you think Panda was bad, Florida was a storm that seemingly blew the roofs off SEO homes everywhere. It hit during the holiday shopping period. It caused confusion and havoc among many SEOs. Search engine optimizati [...]

Google Panda 2.5: Losers Include Today Show, The Next Web; Winners Include YouTube, Fox News

Oct 1, 2011 at 1:47pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Searchmetrics has a pretty good track record of figuring out who lost after one of Google's Panda Updates. Among the latest victims of this week's Panda Update 2.5, some unexpected surprises: popular tech blog The Next Web, blog aggregator Technorati, and NBC's The Today Show. Winners include Google's own YouTube, along with Fox News and several other mainstream news sites. Apparently, that patented SEO process that Business Wire just announced isn't much help to the company. It was listed among the victims, along with PR Newswire. About The Losers The names are from a report that Searc [...]

Confirmed: Google Panda 2.5 Update Arrived This Week

Sep 30, 2011 at 4:56pm ET by Matt McGee

Google has confirmed that the latest iteration of its Panda algorithm update is live. Based on our tracking of the algorithm changes, this is Panda Update 2.5. Google declined to share any specifics about what types of sites, pages or content this update targeted, instead only sharing the company's default statement: We're continuing to iterate on our Panda algorithm as part of our commitment to returning high-quality sites to Google users. This most recent update is one of the roughly 500 changes we make to our ranking algorithms each year. WebProNews reported this morning that the updat [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Panda Update | Panda Update News

Google Panda Update 2.4: Panda Goes International, In Most Languages

Aug 12, 2011 at 7:05am ET by Vanessa Fox

Google has just announced that their "Panda" rankings changes, first launched in the United States in late February and rolled out to English language indices internationally in April, have now launched internationally in all languages other than Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Their post notes that for non-English indices, this change impacts 6-9% of queries (vs. the 12% the original US English launch). This launch also includes a few minor changes to the English version of Panda, but shouldn't have a substantial impact. In their post, they say: For many months, we’ve been focused o [...]

Official: Google Panda 2.3 Update Is Live

Jul 26, 2011 at 3:26pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has confirmed to Search Engine Land that late last week it pushed out a small update to the Panda filter. "We're continuing to iterate on our Panda algorithm as part of our commitment to returning high-quality sites to Google users," a Google spokesperson told us. "This most recent update is one of the roughly 500 changes we make to our ranking algorithms each year," the spokesperson added. Over the past week or so, I have been tracking the complaints in the various forums, including the large ongoing thread at WebmasterWorld. At first, I felt the complaints suggested that Goog [...]

Can You Dig Out Of Your Google Panda Hole By Offloading To Subdomains?

Jul 13, 2011 at 5:21pm ET by Barry Schwartz

The Wall Street Journal has an article out today reporting that Hubpages, acting on advice from Google, has found that using subdomains seems to have gotten some of their content to recover from a Panda penalty. By moving some of their content to new subdomains, it either has escaped the penalty or is being assessed afresh. The article said: In June, a top Google search engineer, Matt Cutts, wrote to Edmondson that he might want to try subdomains, among other things. The HubPages subdomain testing began in late June and already has shown positive results. Edmondson’s own articl [...]

Why Google Panda Is More A Ranking Factor Than Algorithm Update

Jun 21, 2011 at 9:33am ET by Danny Sullivan

With Google Panda Update 2.2 upon us, it's worth revisiting what exactly Panda is and isn't. Panda is a new ranking factor. Panda is not an entirely new overall ranking algorithm that's employed by Google. The difference is important for anyone hit by Panda and hoping to recover from it. Google's Ranking Algorithm & Updates Let's start with search engine optimization 101. After search engines collect pages from across the web, they need to sort through them in demand to searches that are done. Which are the best? To decide this, they employ a ranking algorithm. It's like a recipe for coo [...]

Official: Google Panda Update 2.2 Is Live

Jun 21, 2011 at 9:32am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has given us confirmation that they have run an update to the Panda filter recently. We have been expecting the Panda 2.2 update based on news coming out of the SMX Advanced conference. Matt Cutts told SMX attendees that Panda 2.2 has been approved, hasn’t been rolled out yet, but that should happen soon. The update hit sometime late last week. I believe Google manually pushed out the Panda 2.2 update around June 16th. As some of you know, I track the SEO discussion forums very closely and have two posts at the Search Engine Roundtable discussing Webmaster chatter around th [...]

Coming Soon: Google Panda Update 2.2

Jun 9, 2011 at 7:30am ET by Matt McGee

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-rank [...]

It’s Panda Update 2.1, Not Panda 3.0, Google Says

May 10, 2011 at 1:25pm ET by Danny Sullivan

There have been rumblings that Google has unveiled another huge algorithm change being dubbed "Panda 3.0" in some quarters. Officially, Google says it's not so. Only a minor update, "far smaller" than Panda 2, has happened. Changes have been spotted by some sharp-eyed SEOs over the past few days, and Google agrees that there were some tweaks made. But as I said, the company says this impacts far fewer rankings than in the past. Let's recap: Panda 1.0: Launched on February 24, this targeted "shallow" or "thin" content and impacted about 12% of the rankings in the United States. See our [...]

Hit By Panda Update? Google Has 23 Questions To Ask Yourself To Improve

May 6, 2011 at 4:01pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Amit Singhal, Google's head of search, published a blog post on the Google Webmaster Central blog named More guidance on building high-quality sites. Amit's goal with this post is to have those webmasters impacted by this Panda Update, which rolled out internationally about a month ago, with some direction and guidance to help explain what sites Google likes and which they dislike. Amit said that he cannot document publicly the "actual ranking signals" but will share questions you should ask yourself and consider when trying to understand why a site was impacted by this update. Those q [...]

Panda 2.0: Google Rolls Out Panda Update Internationally & Incorporates Searcher Blocking Data

Apr 11, 2011 at 3:13pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Late February, Google launched a substantial algorithm change (known as "Farmer" or "Panda") aimed at identifying low-quality pages and sites. These are pages (often seen on so-called "content farms") with text that is relevant for a query, but may not provide the best user experience. (Google calls it a "high quality sites algorithm".) Today, Google has rolled this change out to all English language queries and made a few minor updates (with an estimated impact to 2% of U.S. queries). Live for All English Queries The original algorithm update impacted only U.S. queries. As of today, this c [...]

Lessons Learned at SMX West: Google’s Panda Update, White Hat Cloaking & Link Building

Mar 12, 2011 at 1:36pm ET by Vanessa Fox

An amazing amount of great information came out of SMX West this week. Below is a summary of some of what I found to be the most actionable and useful. Google's Own Words About the Farmer/Panda Update Google's Matt Cutts said that while the change isn't 100% perfect, searcher feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. He noted that the change is completely algorithmic with no manual exceptions. Blocking "Low Quality" Content Matt reiterated that enough low quality content on a site could reduce rankings for that site as a whole. Improving the quality of the pages or removing the pages alto [...]

The Farmer/Panda Update: New Information From Google and The Latest from SMX West

Mar 9, 2011 at 2:34am ET by Vanessa Fox

[caption id="attachment_67584" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image from Sony200boy on Flickr"][/caption] Today at SMX West, the subject of the day was content farms. One session included the founder of (sometimes-called content farm) Associated Content, Luke Beatty, and focused on the good that can be learned from content farms, as well as what sites who have been hit by Google’s Farmer aka Panda update can do to regain their rankings. This discussion coincides with an updated posting from Google in the webmaster discussion forum thread they opened for site owners on the sub [...]

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