Panda (NOT PENGUIN) Refresh - began June 8, 2012

[tedster]

From the "A Googler" account on Twitter:

FYI Panda data refresh started rolling out on Friday. Less than 1% of queries noticeably affected in the U.S. & 1% worldwide.

[twitter.com...]

[tedster]

Just to keep any discussion focused on Panda - the goal of Panda was to demote "shallow" content - the kind of page that isn't truly spam but doesn't offer anything unique or in-depth either. The original goal of this algorithm was targeting the content farms that had begun dominating the SERPs (think "How To Pour Milk" and the like.)

[brinked]

I pretty much figured there was a panda update in the process starting friday.

I did not see many websites fall in the serp's I monitor. I am seeing a lot of gains by sites that were already ranking, but now have a lot of sub pages ranking as well so I guess that in turn could be hurting a lot of other businesses since they are being pushed back.

This could be something unrelated to panda, but I did start noticing it on friday so that might be unlikely.

[Dantes100]

I gained about 30% after penguin, only to lose it again on this panda update... it's really starting to get on my nerves.

[HuskyPup]

Yep, I already knew something had happened since my Coppermine gallery had another 50% traffic loss and mauling by the Panda...WTF is all that about?

All Google seems to be interested in within my niche is promoting Chinese directory sites with repeat after repeat after repeat pages!

[realmaverick]

HP, sorry to hear it's been hit further.

I had a feeling there was an update going on. No major shifts on my Panda hit website, despite some significant improvements.

Bounce rate from 50% to 30%
Page views from 7 to 12
Time on site from 5 to 8 minutes
Page loading times cut in half
Fully optimised mobile site
Fixed most of the duplicate content issues, that were caused by bugs in the CMS

The above changes have had zero effect. Very surprisingly, seeing as Panda is supposed to have a large focus on user experience.

[Planet13]

Hard to say what the medium to long term effect will be, but just comparing traffic for the past three days, already see a further 10% drop in traffic compared to the previous week's Friday - Saturday - Sunday period - despite the fact that I removed what COULD have been Panda fodder (a directory and coppermine gallery) about six weeks ago to get out of a 30% drop from march 23.

Somebody just put me out of my misery already, ok?

[crobb305]

Bounce rate from 50% to 30%
Page views from 7 to 12
Time on site from 5 to 8 minutes
Page loading times cut in half
Fully optimised mobile site
Fixed most of the duplicate content issues, that were caused by bugs in the CMS

The above changes have had zero effect. Very surprisingly, seeing as Panda is supposed to have a large focus on user experience.

I was hit by Penguin, then this weekend by Panda. As realmaverick pointed out, my bounce rate has also decreased, in my case to below 30%. If they are using user experience as a measure, they are getting it wrong. And the website about fungus is still ranking page one for financial terms. It is astounding.

[edited by: crobb305 at 6:38 pm (utc) on Jun 11, 2012]

[menntarra 34]

I was hit by PANDA in October. I worked hard to correct anything that seemed to caused the issues only to find out in April that i was hit again. And now on the 8th June i got hit again. Now i don't know what to do, cause none of the changes seem to have any effect whatsoever.

I have several concurrency sites, none of them suffered, and now all of them are better ranked than me, despite the fact that i can point out at least 10 crucial problems which do not abide by the rules(suggestions) of google.

All in all i'm now down by 60%.

[chalkywhite]

I was hit by panda in the Octrober update. ive not esacped !00% however I have an increase of around 10 -20% today from organic search.

[thedonald123]

I'm seeing no difference whatsoever in US traffic and a 20% increase in International traffic.

Less than 1% of queries noticeably affected in the U.S. & 1% worldwide.

It would seem from the Twitter post that this update effected International more then US. Is anyone else seeing such a large discrepancy between US and non-US?

Also, as many have reported, since last week, I think before Friday but not sure, (Is it Panda related or Penguin?) I've been seeing some very specific websites getting 4-7 results per page in each niche, especially on page 2 or 3 of SERPS. My website is one of the 2 "lucky" ones that I've seen this with (no real increase in traffic just rankings). It seems to me that Google is only doing this with the websites they deem the authority sites in the niche. My website was hit by Panda 2.0 back in April 2011 and didn't recover until November 2011. Along with the recovery came this new status of Authority site. Since November I've seen more and more evidence that the status of an Authority site is a life saver. This website wasn't hit by Penguin although it has the same problems as my other sites which were hit by penguin. Also, duplicate content doesn't seem to effect it as much negatively.

Displaying 4-7 results from the same site on a SERP can't possibly be what Google wants in the long term. It must be a bug or a result of all the penalties creating a hole which needs to be filled, so Google is filling it with the sites they've deemed Authority or trustworthy.

[thedonald123]

I just realized my Penguin hit site which lost 85% of traffic from Penguin 1.0 just got a nice boost of traffic. Apparently it was hit by both Penguin and Panda originally and possibly it just recovered from Panda. It is still way down from pre-penguin days, so definitely still a penguin victim.
Diagnosing the algorithm which hit you is really difficult with so many updates.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

It actually began late June 5, early June 6 and something that happened, at least to me, is that my peak traffic days have shifted, again.

Eons ago: Thurs to Sunday were the weekly peak traffic days.
3-4 years ago: Sat to Monday became the most trafficked days.
Last year: Sun to Tuesday was the peak.
As of June 5/6: Monday to Wednesday is the new peak, from Google.

Now, I know the entire internet didn't shift how often they use the internet on June 5/6, or likely any other of the times above, so something Panda can do is place your site on a different traffic "schedule". (unless Panda isn't the only "change" Google just made)

We've been thinking of rankings as static, you get x% of the searches for your keyword based on your rank, but that's NOT how the internet works anymore. The rankings are in flux depending on site type (informational vs transactional vs locational) and day of week, keep that in mind with any report you make here... please.

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 7:09 pm (utc) on Jun 11, 2012]

[robzilla]

How often do we see these Panda refreshes nowadays? I recently relaunched a site that probably (and rightfully) lost rankings due to Panda, and hope to have some of those restored. This refresh is a bit too early though, as Google hasn't fully crawled the site yet, and most old pages are still in the index.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

How often do we see these Panda refreshes nowadays?

The real question is "how often do we see a change that reduces our traffic quality from Google", imo. If you see my post above it's not about how much traffic anymore and more about the quality of traffic we get from Google (when/purpose). The total number of visitors is meaningless (though surprisingly stable considering it is apparently being vetted).

[ascensions]

Does anyone know does Google still operates like the good ole days? Will this Panda have to spread to other data centers, or are things instant these days?

[realmaverick]

I would guess that Fridays update would have propagated by now. But I maybe wrong.

[legaleagle]

I am seeing things settle down now, for a while there were three sets of results I was seeing when refreshing the browser.

[atlrus]

Google launches new refresh once a week, always "affecting 1%"...

I dream about the good ole days when I could go to bed and wake up with the same results the next morning...

I wouldn't get too excited about this refresh. It coincided with the listing of multiple pages of the same domain, so I can only assume it will be reverted if it's related to this issue.

[gouri]

When there is a Panda refresh, would Google look at the version of a page in the SERP index or the cache version?

[realmaverick]

I've been noticing multiple results from the same domain way before this refresh.

[DigiSEO]

How many days does it take Panda to refresh? I started seeing some really good improvement on Friday into Saturday, but Sunday and today it is back to normal. I was getting really excited, but am now afraid it all reverted after the Panda roll out.

[zeus]

I was hit late April 2011 and have not seen any changes since then, I even have to skip my round birthday this month, be cause there is nothing to celebrate.

[Web_speed]

"...Less than 1% of queries noticeably affected in the U.S. & 1% worldwide." ...These statements they keep releasing are absolute BS.

I have a number of independent eCommerce shops. An ebay shop, and 2 other auction style shops on other venues. I also mange and monitor a number of web sites for clients (wide range of topics).

THEY ALL... and i mean ALL go dead quiet and sales absolutely stop whenever Google releases these "little" updates that affect only "1%" of search....absolute nonsense these numbers!... whatever they mess with affects the entire web and turns traffic up side down for most web sites nowadays...

[Web_speed]

zeus, i feel your pain, hang in there... it will get better. Eventually.

[tedster]

When there is a Panda refresh, would Google look at the version of a page in the SERP index or the cache version?

SERPs are normally ranked according to the most recent crawl - which can be more recent than what you see under the cache: operator. However, neither Panda nor Penguin run in real time, so my educated guess is that the crawl that this update ran with is slightly older than last Friday's date. I'm not sure that they've ever commented on how much delay is built into the process.

[Whitey]

neither Panda nor Penguin run in real time

Why the delay and what are the implications for Penguin updates in the future. It's been more than a year with Panda and talk of "live" updates has not materialised.

[crobb305]

I tried searching for medical information regarding the spleen and seizures (using that phrase)... 7 out of the top 20 results are hogged by a single website which is just a confusing mess of links. Another set of 3 results in the top 20 are from another domain. This is ridiculous. Panda and Penguin are simply getting it wrong. Binged it and got some good information.

[synthese]

I was hit in the initial Feb 2011 panda. Despite incredible amounts of work, improvement in metrics, quality etc etc... it seems that from Friday, traffic has dropped a further 20-25%. Go figure. I just don't get it. I really don't.

[realmaverick]

I was hit in the initial Feb 2011 panda. Despite incredible amounts of work, improvement in metrics, quality etc etc... it seems that from Friday, traffic has dropped a further 20-25%. Go figure. I just don't get it. I really don't.

It's a little confusing. Because while I like to think that maybe you just missed whatever triggered the penalty in the first place. Why wouldn't a significant improvement in metrics help at all? And as in your case, a further drop.

I would just keep improving and creating great content. Double check for internal duplicate content.