Google: Panda 4.1 Still Rolling Out

Over the weekend, there was a tremendous amount of chatter within the SEO community, including discussion forums, social media and other channels. There were rumors that Google was pushing out a new algorithm, maybe the eagerly anticipated Penguin refresh which is expected really soon or maybe something else?

Google told us just now that the Panda 4.1 release is still rolling out and that may be what SEOs and Webmasters are noticing.

Google launched Panda 4.1 on September 25, 2014 and told us it would be a “slow rollout” that would go into the following week. No one really expected the rollout to continue into this week but it has and the fluctuations and ranking changes you are seeing are likely related to that.

If you saw a huge drop in Google traffic, it may or may not be related to Panda 4.1. Google is constantly making changes and although you may notice a drop on the Panda 4.1 release date, you may have been impacted by other algorithms, user interface changes or manual actions. In addition, you might not notice a change on September 25th but notice one over this past weekend, which could also be related to Panda 4.1.

Google has confirmed with us that Panda 4.1 is still rolling out.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.