Panda 4.1 Rolling Out

[netmeg]

Based on user (and webmaster!) feedback, we’ve been able to discover a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content more precisely. This results in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher, which is nice.

Depending on the locale, around 3-5% of queries are affected.

Google+:
https://plus.google.com/+PierreFar/posts/7CWs3a3yoeY [plus.google.com]

(sorry, it's https so it won't link)

Searchengineland:

http://searchengineland.com/panda-update-rolling-204313 [searchengineland.com]

[edited by: aakk9999 at 11:40 pm (utc) on Sep 25, 2014]
[edit reason] Made link clickable [/edit]

[EditorialGuy]

>>if the pages are valuable to some people some of the time, they're worth keeping.<<

That's what prev/next or combining pages and using 301 redirects are all about.
They're ways of keeping content but improving page metrics.

Yes, and if the content has any value, they're a better solution than simply dumping the pages. (I'm a big fan of prev/next pagination, which has been helpful to our long multi-page articles.)

That's called sitting on the edge of an algorithm....If it means repackaging my site so it looks stronger to Google, that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

Of course, it's always possible that, by eliminating pages that add value to the site even if they don't receive a lot of traffic, you'll make your site look weaker to Google--especially as subject authority becomes more important, as Google has said that it will. There's no way of knowing, but building for the user (as opposed to chasing an algorithm) could be the safer and more conservative approach.

Anecdotal side note: We've got a photo gallery of several hundred pages from 2003 that doesn't get much traffic, but when a user does visit it, that user often looks at the whole thing or a good chunk of it. That's got to be good for user-engagement metrics--and it's certainly good for users who find their way to the photo gallery while researching the topic.

[Sand]

It looks like things have stabilized on my end (traffic patterns have become consistent and predictable after a few days of flux). From what I can see, this update is done rolling out.

Anyone seeing anything to make them think differently?

[mrengine]

Anyone seeing anything to make them think differently?

I see the same stacked big brands still at the top of the search results for my industry related keywords. It does not even look like this version of panda even touched the search results! I kind of hope it is not done rolling out yet because it would be a huge disappointment.

[aok88]

I see the same stacked big brands still at the top of the search results for my industry related keywords. It does not even look like this version of panda even touched the search results! I kind of hope it is not done rolling out yet because it would be a huge disappointment.

Agreed

[aok88]

But today I am noticing way better converting visitors, like the zombie tap was turned off, maybe that's a good sign.

[Saffron]

I'm up 10% and just crossing everything that it sticks.

It's interesting comparing my stats from 2012 (my best ever year) to the same period in 2014. It's actually the biggest articles that fell the most, but those small ones, which didn't get much traffic have pretty much held up consistently and. So there's no guarantee that what is flavour of the month (or year) at the moment will always be so. I like a variety of popular and unusual topics (which may not get many views) to keep things interesting.

I am still going through the older ones with a short time on the page and reviewing. Some have a short time on the page because the answer is genuinely short and there's no real reason to stick around, but in some cases the content can and has been improved.

[samwest]

I hope that wave hits me soon, because I've had a total blackout day...15 min stretches of zero. I try every day to be positive, re-checking my pages again and again, reading countless conflicting SEO methodologies and basically going batty watching this once fruitful endeavor just swirl the drain as thin spun trash floats to the top.

I'm 50+ and have worked on mainframes, the old dishwasher sized HP drives, vacuum tape systems, and wire wrapped circuit boards. Software upgrades meant replacing hundreds of EEPROM chips...it all worked great and at least had a manual...Technology was supposed to get easier!

Cocktail time.

[seoskunk]

This is still rolling out seeing major fluctuations in deep pages within the index.

[Saffron]

I'm sorry to hear that samwest, I know how much it guts you when your site takes a hit. After being the golden child for many years, mine has taken two hits and it's been absolutely terrifying.

Fingers crossed that Google is still sorting things out and it picks up for you :)

[Martin Ice Web]

I wonder what new signals they found as there, as expected, is not realy a gain for high compeling small and mid size sites. All i can see is ,that shallow scraped and affiliate sites have been replaced by even worse sites. Brnads that are not relevant have been shuffeled on page one but there are not realy any changes. I saw some queries with 5 times amazon and 3 times a brand in are row.

This is diversity, which is nice.

Price compare engines seem to have win this game as in my sectore there are about 5 of them on page one.

Panda makes mewonder if it is still in kindergarten as it seems nit be able to understand good, long and compelling essays or descriptions. It looks like every time panda sees a website with content it says : oh boy, i don't understand. I am not programmed to understand deep content, i was programmed to find sites with only one or two sentence on it.

Yesterday it seems like a rollback.

Like every panda this one does not match the meaning of the statements pronounced by google.

[dkseoexpert]

I also not see any changes in ranking of the websites taht I have worked on.

[Martin Ice Web]

Fingers crossed that Google is still sorting things out

yes thbey are sorting, since yesterday we see a big drop of 50%.
I am realy looking forward amazon having its new ad system online.

[kenroar]

Still seeing fluctuations. Up and down 10% the past three days. Still -30 - 35% below what it was before August 26.

[extremist]

still seeing fluctuations too. %50 drop since yesterday.

[RedBar]

@MIW

oh boy, i don't understand. I am not programmed to understand deep content, i was programmed to find sites with only one or two sentence on it.

Unfortunately it seems to have been that way for at least 2 maybe 3 years now.

[Martin Ice Web]

Redbar,

how long is kindergarten in US? 4 years, five years... maybe there is hope that panda grows and will have some basci skills in understanding good compelling websites..

@extremist, did you notice a rollback? We see old pre 26.8 serps.

[denisl]

One of my sites (UK based) was hit by panda in May and has had a fair amount of improvement work done since.
It regained most of the lost visitors on Sunday but appears to have lost them all again today.

[netmeg]

how long is kindergarten in US?

One year, unless you flunk it.

[extremist]

@Martin Ice Web, I didn't notice rollback in serps, but I noticed extremely strange rollback in adsense reports. adsense served the ad that I created in 2009 and there is no that kind of ad unit since 2009. strange isn't it ?

[Martin Ice Web]

@extremist, i can't follow ypu. How can reports bee rolled back?

[Lorel]

My traffic is still growing with an increase in ranking on 5 main terms with only 1 fully recovered. Traffic is almost back to what it was May 20 (Panda 4.0). If it levels off at May 20 levels then I'll know it's not a college traffic increase (as I mentioned earlier I believe this is due to adding text to some pages and deleting several other non-relevant or outdated pgs several months back).

[BillyS]

I have to admit, this really seems like a non-event. I'm not seeing any movement at all. Even MozCast and Algoroo show very little change for what took months for Google to develop.

[SEOPTI]

No change for long tail local queries, I still vote for Bing.

[EditorialGuy]

I have to admit, this really seems like a non-event. I'm not seeing any movement at all.

I'm seeing what appears to be an upward creep, but I probably wouldn't have been aware of the update if I hadn't read about it.

[rbarker]

Anyone see any hints a link or social media update is included in 4.1? We've built a large presence in social media this past year and have yet to see them appear in our Google WMT account. We know they don't show all links credited but those we've built should have a positive impact and we aren't seeing any change in our placement or our competitors...

Note: We have over 1000 legitimate Likes and a 4.8 star rating on our FB business page but still show only 29 Likes on our website.

[micklearn]

via [seroundtable.com...]

"I'll be setting up next week's hangouts soon -- do you have any preferred topics that we might want to focus on in one of them?

These are some great ideas already, thank you! I'd love to go past Penguin & Panda for these topical hangouts since they really only affect a very small part of the sites out there. On the other hand, current best practices & common problems (or myths) sounds like an interesting topic. Duplicate content is also one that comes up in almost every hangout, so maybe we could do something more in-depth on that. I'll set up the hangouts for next week tomorrow, but I'd love to have more topics (or +1's on comments :)) if there's something we should be picking up as a topic."

Welcome to the new Matt Cutts: John Mueller.

"I'd love to go past Penguin & Panda"...

[Martin Ice Web]

It seems like a panda goes in its last phase. Big drops today. Sers are are brands biased. Some of my "high-quality small and mid-size" competitors lost about 10 places.

This results in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher, which is nice.

Again, i can´t see anything like that. There is nothing nice. Sites using csv files from distributors with same navigation/description lined in a row. Where is this good serps or good UE?
Fact: However the big you are the better u are ranking, whether then content is compelling or not. This panda rised the treshold again, to the bad.
Bounce is at 90% from less than 40%.

[superclown2]

Some of my sites rose after the update; most of them have settled back to where they were before it.

Some of my sites fell after the update; they have stayed lower.

The SERPs are now even more dominated in my UK sector by big websites.

The answer? IMO it is necessary to build big sites or plan a different career. Sites that want to promote red square widgets will need to have an initial emphasis on widgets of all kinds, with a secondary level of square, round, oblong widgets etc, and a tertiary level (at least) of red, green, blue, orange ones.

This is the way things are. If you can't beat them, join them.

Just my opinion. You may not agree but it is the direction I will go in.

[Anon]

I've lost more ranks over the past week .. And now my competitor who runs 2 websites selling the exact same products (hosted on the same account with same name servers etc), who also stole 80% of the text from my site is now far in front of my site. Yeah, that's fair.

[mrengine]

I admit I was wrong when about a week ago I stated:

But I've learned over time that Google's updates often deliver exactly the opposite of what they are advertised to do.

Panda did not do the opposite of what it was advertised to do in my industry. It did nothing! I don't think I'm the only one not seeing anything either. According to a comment on one of Barry's posts, SERP tracking services did not show anything major either (just a blip on Algoroo when I looked).

An update that effects 3-5% of queries should have resulted in MAJOR flux. Maybe Google forgot the decimal point in front of the 3-5% (being .3-.5%) effect when they announced it?