Japan and Korea get Panda

Google algo update

[bill]

According to this tweet...

A Googler's Twitter [twitter.com]

We're launching Panda for Japanese & Korean. <5% of queries affected (no other languages affected today). Context: [goo.gl...]
Some 16 months after Panda was unleashed on the English SERPs this will now affect Japanese and Korean language SERPs.

[jmccormac]

Baidu is going to be pleased.

Regards...jmcc

[azlinda]

They don't know what kind of hell they're in for!

[sem4u]

Good luck to them...Japanese and Korean webmaster forums will be buzzing.

[GeneVincent]

Which languages has Panda been activated for ? Does anybody have a list ?

[bill]

Google is still a minor player in Korea comparatively, but in Japan the SERPs are heavily controlled by them. Is their claim of <5% impact optimistic?

[gaijinweb]

Hey bill, it's rare to see webmasters from Osaka around!

Like you said, since Google also provide the algo for Yahoo and other local search engines, they control the vast majority of Japanese search queries...

5% is huge because most of the sites affected are commercial ones (like "buy #*$!" or "#*$! services"). It would be more like 60-80% of commercial queries affected, which represents 5% of total queries.

I saw major changes for all the keywords I am following, some low quality sites just disappeared and rankings moved a lot (and keep moving a lot) in general.

[bill]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld gaijinweb. Yes it is indeed rare to come across anyone in Osaka who knows about SEO too. ;)

Are you seeing changes in the e-commerce type listings? The standard old corporate brochure sites don't seem to have taken a big hit.