tedster - 2:24 am on Oct 4, 2011 (gmt 0)

makes it so difficult to second guess

Yes, it does. I think the Panda is still a baby, and still learning. These results we're seeing are not the way it's going to look in the future. But what we do see right now, when some features are at their most exaggerated, may be our best chance to see just a bit of how the mechanics of this beast work... if that's ever going to be a possibility at all.

Google put more than a year into Panda's development before the first roll-out, employing lots of smart minds and processing muscle of an almost unimaginable scale. It may just be impenetrable to our outside deconstruction, whether it's misfiring in an area or working exactly as planned. And it is one of the most audacious projects ever attempted for any algorithm.

It seems certain to me that there isn't going to be some easy answer. A while before Panda, Matt Cutts did mention that webmasters will need to chase their visitors rather than the Google algorithm.