What I understand by Panda...seems different to most people

[chrism]

Over the last few days it's dawned on me that my understanding of the 'running of panda' and 'panda dates' seems to be very different to other people's.

My feeling is that when dates occur where 'Panda 2.1' or '2.2' or '2.3' runs, what happens is the factors of measurement change, and this is what 'running Panda' means. In other words, the indicators themselves are 'regenerated'. I believe it is for this reason that we see bulk cases of rises or hits due to Panda on these dates, as the rules are changing, not the sites in the SERPS.

What this also means is sites can escape Panda between 'runs', but only if they specifically address the indicators that are suppressing their rankings. The fact that a wide variety of factors may be involved in suppressing any one site may mean that changing just one aspect of a site may tip it back to 'normal' or improved rankings, or it may require many subtle changes.

As a result of people chasing statements like 'remove ads above the fold' I think it may even be possible that Panda 1 may have heavily weighted advertising, but subsequent versions have a much lower weighting relating to advertising because a significant number of sites initially flagged by Panda have 'improved' their site (in Panda's eyes) so in the greater scheme of things it's a less important indicator (but still an indicator nonetheless).

Of course, all of this is just my feeling as to what is happening, but I really don't buy into the idea that google wants to suppress sites indefinitely until the next 'run' of Panda even if they have addressed the issues flagged.

[Planet13]

I agree.

I have heard many people frequently say "run Panda" without clarifying what running Panda actually is.

Is it a major change to the panda filter? Is it simply reevaluating sites that have been affected by Panda at the same time? Are sites that have been affected by panda "locked" in their rankings until Panda is run?

There doesn't seem to be any clear consensus on this.

[edited by: Planet13 at 5:19 pm (utc) on Aug 12, 2011]

[Lapizuli]

Great thread! I've been thinking that it was a little bit of tweaking of the "rules" and a lot of using newly gathered user metrics. But heck, who knows?

[chrism]

I think one of the strengths if I am on the right lines here is that Panda can almost automatically adapt to new spam techniquesas they surface, simply by comparing groups of signals to known low quality sites (by google's definition of course!)

The downside is also present too, some not so low quality sites may exhibit the same signals as those used collectively to define the low quality sites.

[littlegiant]

...but subsequent versions have a much lower weighting relating to advertising because a significant number of sites initially flagged by Panda have 'improved' their site (in Panda's eyes) so in the greater scheme of things it's a less important indicator (but still an indicator nonetheless).

Cutting some slack in that manner would leave all those who weren't hit by that version of Panda to possibly fly under the ads-above-the-fold radar, wouldn't it? No, I would think they'd have to keep the pressure on on all fronts for this thing to be successful.