Official Google Panda Update Version 3.8 On June 25th

[anteck]

Just spotted this from SearchEngineLand:

Official Google Panda Update Version 3.8 On June 25th
June 25, 2012 at 5:49pm ET
[searchengineland.com...]

Google has announced they pushed out a new refresh to the Panda algorithm recently.

This update "noticeably affects only ~1% of queries worldwide," said Google on Twitter.

There were earlier rumors of an update over the weekend but Google said the rollout started today and not over the weekend.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 1:45 am (utc) on Jun 26, 2012]
[edit reason] fixed link, added quote box, shortened quote [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

The Google tweet announcing this was caught this morning in our Google Update thread [webmasterworld.com...] by Sand...

https://twitter.com/google/status/217366321879453696 [twitter.com]

Also, various mentions on our serps update thread and elsewhere that conversions are up for some, albeit there's been no correlation established.

[louieramos]

I normally feel this when it happens, but right now I haven't seen any major movements, so its either its still brewing, just commenced or will commence on the usual Thursday/Friday update routine.

[mslina2002]

It's been discussed in the main June thread

There have been movements reported.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[louieramos]

Cool, it must be happening then. I felt it on my client sites last 8th of June, (good results) but only minor ones today, maybe we're not part of the ~1% query range

[LostOne]

< moved from another location >

Hmmn... another Panda update? I've actually seen some improvement by gosh. Terms that I haven't seen that high in the SERPS for quite awhile. I'll take two a two slot improvement anyday.

I see a tweet

[twitter.com...]

What time zone is that? Anybody? Sorry I don't tweet.

I see Barry Schwartz mentioned it at 5:49 EST

[searchengineland.com...]

Me - Affected by Panda 1.0. Improved with Penguin. Negatively affected by Panda 3.7 No changes done on site since November 2011
-----------------------------

[edited by: tedster at 12:19 pm (utc) on Jun 26, 2012]

[menntarra 34]

No effects so far.

[getcooking]

After the update started yesterday I saw some great rankings for my site on and off (seemed to be flipping between two data sets). Unfortunately, as of this morning it seems to have settled down and I'm not seeing any changes from the update at all. I was quite hopeful too - the sporadic rankings I was seeing would have gotten us almost back to pre-Panda 1.0 levels. We made a 15% recovery from the earlier Panda update this month (after a 60% loss from Panda 1.0 through 3.6) so I won't complain...much.

[petehall]

From the stats I *think* we're now in a better position than when hit on the 23rd of March... just two panda iterations after site amendments went live.

@getcooking what you are saying is really concerning me at this point. I have worked so hard, if this was to revert I think it would break me! Are you in the UK?

[getcooking]

@petehall

I'm in the US. My site was hit on Panda 1 we lost 30% of our traffic then. Each update after that we lost more traffic until we were down 60% by Panda 3.6. I saw a 15% recovery from Panda 3.7 and essentially no change from yesterdays 3.8 update. It was looking like we were going to have some significant recovery when the update started rolling out yesterday but now it looks like no change or maybe only the tiniest improvement (1-2%). At least we didn't take another hit! My company has lost 80% of its revenue since Panda 1.0. Losing 80% of your salary is kinda scary. I was hoping that yesterdays update would be the light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is still pretty dark. Maybe next update :)

[Bewenched]

I really haven't seen any "change" from yesterdays update for our 14 year old ecommerce site. We lost about 30% in the first panda and although we have had a slow decline since then that also kinda goes with our business season, things always slow down in the summer for us.

We did however see a significant jump in traffic between may 25th and 27th, but then saw a decline after June 19th.

Kinda looks like it's all in flux.

[atlrus]

I stopped by today to see if there are any news, since I was seeing a lot of spammy/hacked sites ranking pretty high, lol.

Here goes another "1%" refresh. Has Google ever claimed the affected websites at higher than 1%?

[Pjman]

"Has Google ever claimed the affected websites at higher than 1%? "

I remember Penguin was one of the bigger ones. around 8%, if I remember right.

[menntarra 34]

I checked other forums and twitter as well, but there isn't much reaction to this panda, like during other panda changes. So this change was either too little OR it is not finished or haven't started yet...

[zeus]

getcooking - I have lost 75% income, also canceled my round birthday here on Thursday be cause of panda, so all friends and family know what panda is. I had hoped I would see some improvements before my birthday, but still stuck with Panda from April 2011

[petehall]

@menntarra34 I think it's over. I am fairly sure they announce the update once it's completed successfully (which would make sense).

[Sand]

One percent sounds small, but it's actually huge when you consider the number of searches performed each day. Especially when you think about the huge number of queries each day that have never been entered before (news related stuff).

[1script]

Why do they keep announcing a "Panda refresh" separately from an "algo change"? Isn't it technically a part of the ranking algo anyhow? What makes is still newsworthy now that it's at v3.8 which sounds to me like an event that has happened at least 38 times in the last 15 months?

[menntarra 34]

Algo change: panda is an ever-developing stuff, so if we call it algo change, it means there were some additional criterias which were added to the panda algo before running it.
Panda refresh: the algo was run without any additional rules added to it.

[Sand]

@1script
I'm assuming it's because the effects are so drastic, and they want people to know what hit them so they can try to clean things up.

'Regular' algo changes rarely have such an immediately drastic impact. Or if they do, I've never seen it.

[menntarra 34]

I'm interested if others have such experience: my site was negatively affected by PANDA in April and June as well, crawl rate went down in April, and now it is hitting the top. It might mean something...

ps.:If petehall is right, and this 3.8 panda refresh really finished, then i wasn't affected by this update. No change in traffic.

[onebuyone]

It might as well be a time bomb.

[ecmedia]

Here is my input from the latest update. From our portfolio of about half a dozen websites, all of whom have been affected by Panda at one point or other, only one has seen movement this time. This one was beaten up in each Panda version but I refused to change a thing because I was so convinced Google was wrong and I was right. Then miraculously, in April it saw an uptick to be smacked again on June 8/9 update. Now it is back to the pre-June 8/9 levels.

All I can conclude is that G has no clue what it is doing it and at this point they cannot go back to pre-Panda days. It is hard to know if the company considers it a success -- we can all agree that its original mission of destroying content farms has been a failure because they are actually thriving like never before -- but owners of good websites are definitely bewildered.

I mean how can it be that my website was so bad at one time that it had to be Pandalized and then brought back in April even though I made no change, to be smacked again seven weeks later, and then restored again 2 weeks later? I fail to understand how all those Ph.D's at Google can be so bad. I think a real panda would have done a much better job designing the algorithm.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

What, exactly, does the announcement mean? Are they rolling out data they previously recorded and, if so, when did they gather it? Or are they gathering data right now and applying it on the go?

When they announced the last update I had seen a major crawl update two days prior.

Hmmm, i'm assuming there even needs to be a crawl here which may be wrong to begin with. Google is likely just updating based on user metrics data they have collected and not just actual page content.

[anteck]

ecmedia : Too funny! That's telling. I think the issue is that all those PhD's are being used, but they have so many 'layers' on the Algo, they've sort of lost the plot.

Too many cooks in the kitchen, all trying to cook chicken soup.

The main cook, who's been in the kitchen for years, made a killer chicken soup which people repeatedly came back for.

However, a Panda thinks the chicken soup taste's funny, and a Penguin thinks the Chicken soup has been spiked with something dodgy.

Meanwhile, people are wondering where all the tasty chicken soup has gone and why there are four to eight variants of the same meal on each page of the menu.

It's a mess. Animals should not be working in a kitchen ;)

[wingslevel]

@ecmedia, i do think it is possible to be right on the edge of the panda penalty. I have one site that is there for sure. When it gets hit by a panda update it tends to be a 10-15% shot - not the nuclear blow that we have all heard tell of. Then, on the next update it can recover. Also, when the updates are rolling out through the data tiers, it can perform very well.

This particular site took a mild hit on June 8 and it is back to normal as of yesterday.

[claaarky]

1script
Algo change - they've changed the algo
Panda refresh - they've fed the latest user metrics about all our sites into the algo.

Sgt_Kickaxe
Panda and Google crawling your site could be related. User metrics collected about your site since the last Panda update (assuming that's the period they look at) may contain pages that don't exist on your site any more, so maybe they may need to check they are still there before they can apply the Panda score to all your pages, which the algo will then swing into action and rankings will fly all over the place as improving and worsening sites fluctuate.

[claaarky]

wingslevel
I don't think there is an 'edge' to Panda. It's just a ranking factor.

Your site will fluctuate at Panda time because you keep making your site content better or worse, or other sites around you are making theirs better or worse.

[Sand]

Has Google ever gone on the record saying that user metrics matter for Panda? Or is that just a huge assumption everyone is making.

[diberry]

It is hard to know if the company considers it a success -- we can all agree that its original mission of destroying content farms has been a failure because they are actually thriving like never before -- but owners of good websites are definitely bewildered.

I consider Penguin to be proof positive that Google cannot outsmart spammers. Panda was arguably proof, but I don't see how anyone could think Penguin was a success.

That's why Google needs to forget trying to outsmart spammers and just deliver the best possible results. If spammers manage to create great results, who cares? The end user sure doesn't.

I don't know if it's ego driving Google to keep going down this path, or if it's some other consideration entirely - like trying to shape the SERPs for maximum Adsense earnings, as some have speculated - but it's the wrong path.