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]

[bumpski]

very low (seconds) amount of time spent on the page

They tell you how to use Google Analytics (mostly landing page data) to see how Google interprets the worth of your individual pages.

I hope those posting here, and making significant SEO decisions, realize that Google Analytics "time on page" is grossly inaccurate for single page visits, which is common for many small sites with high quality content. GA will report seconds (or zero) when your visitors may have spent many minutes on a single page. GA will call a page visit a bounce even if a visitor spent 20 minutes on the page, but did not visit another. (Surely 20 minutes on a page counts as an "interaction" with the page.)
You might have a page with 100 visits and as long as the visitors back out and don't visit another page, all those visits will be reported as ZERO TIME ON PAGE!

Please see these posts:
Technical:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Overview and Intro:
[webmasterworld.com...]

If as a landing page, you have content that only gets a very minimal number of visitors but it's time-on-page and bounce rate (or adjusted bounce rate) stats are outstanding for your site, then it's a keeper.

Without modification Google Analytics will mislead you in this statistical analysis.

Regarding Panda 4.1:
I've seen an interesting upswing significantly delayed versus the early posts, and even more intriguing is Google finally responding to a specific keyword removal, from numerous pages, that was done more than 5 months ago!
------------------
I've tried to inform the Google SEO forum about this massive (correctable) flaw in Analytics that grossly impacts your Google SEO, but have been told that is not a suitable topic for Google SEO. Reading this thread pretty much proves to me that it was suitable.

[samwest]

Not to be a conspiracy whacko, but Google operates under the same cloak and dagger M.O. as DARPA. This from their own website:

Today, DARPA is helping to build a future in which we can do extraordinary things. Fully control the electromagnetic spectrum for communications, sensing, and imaging. Provide precise and accurate position and timing that isn’t dangerously reliant on GPS. Wield cyber as a military capability with confidence in our own cybersecurity. Increase access to and through space by lowering its cost. Open new operational regimes with advanced platforms and weapons. To build a strong foundation for tomorrow’s military systems, we are catalyzing an advanced technology base in new areas of information technology, electronics, and materials science, as well as new technologies emerging from the biological sciences.

Google's Regina Dugan (former DARPA director) is one bad ass woman and I have a lot of respect for her, but their aggressive approach into technology takes into account no consideration for those who rely on that technology now. In other works, "they" have no problem upsetting the apple cart in the name of progress.

TED Video: [ted.com...]

As director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Regina Dugan oversaw the US armed forces' innovation engine. Now she deploys the same research tactics at Google.

Read between the lines. I think this Panda announcement may be even more smoke and mirror misdirection to avoid surprise (ie: gaming of the serps). Just sayin' (and likely slitting my own throat for speaking about this at all)

[netmeg]

(That discussion belongs in the Google Business forum, I think)

[samwest]

I know it's not to your taste, but it belongs here because the point is that perhaps this Panda announcement is just more misdirection and why. They say they are not going to announce any more updates but they do anyway?...We really don't know what is truth or fiction anymore. Do we?

From Google or the SEO community at large...we don't really know for sure - after all, the article "5 Myths About Google’s Algorithms" [internetmarketingninjas.com...] states - "The SEO community is no stranger to myth spreading."

[EditorialGuy]

Maybe Webmaster World could set up:

- Google Conspiracy Theories Forum

- Google Venting Forum

That might help to keep this forum more focused on the topics at hand.

[netmeg]

I know it's not to your taste, but it belongs here because the point is that perhaps this Panda announcement is just more misdirection and why.

Fine, but NOT RELEVANT TO THIS FORUM.

[rish3]

Maybe Webmaster World could set up:

- Google Conspiracy Theories Forum

- Google Venting Forum

To be fully equal opportunity, you would also have to add:

- Google Shill Forum

;)

[netmeg]

Fine, but nobody here (including EG) is shilling for Google. Once and for all. The fact that some of us are more interested in discussing actionable strategies instead of endless conspiracies does not make us Google shills. It makes us people trying to keep our goals focused and our eyes on the ball. As wheel says, the goal is to rank and make money, not to argue with or about Google. All the bitching in the world is not going to change what Google does. If one feels the need to rant about them, the Finance, Govt, Policy and Business forum is the perfect place to do that.

That whole Google shill accusation thing is just plain laziness.

Now, back to Panda. Almost none of the people I run with (a large amount of SEOs and some civilians and clients) have seen anything except for some slight rises. I suspect that the reason this one and the previous one weren't 'baked' into the normal rolling updates is that Google found they had to adjust some things. I know that Panda 4.0 corrected some false positives (because I saw them myself) The fact that they did a couple of updates that weren't rolling updates doesn't mean the whole thing is a damn lie, it means that circumstances (whatever they are) changed. Like what happens with every company on the planet.

[kaz]

-- have seen anything except for some slight rises.

I've seen the same. <10%

-- I know that Panda 4.0 corrected some false positives

I've seen the same ~ boom!

[rish3]

That whole Google shill accusation thing is just plain laziness.

You feel strongly that yelling "shill" is laziness. Someone else might feel strongly that yelling "conspiracy theorist" is no different.

The forum is oriented for discussions around Google SEO. There's a lot of controversy in that topic, and it's reflected here.

Not surprising, and probably not easy to change.

[EditorialGuy]

Trouble is, wandering into discussions of DARPA and unsupported claims that Google is "gaming the SERPs" isn't going to help anyone improve his or her rankings.

At the risk of appearing to shill for Webmaster World, I'll remind everyone that supporters (a.k.a. paid members) have access to a "Review My Site" forum. There's no guarantee that a site review will cure what's ailing you, but it might identify technical issues or or other problems that you've missed, and it's likely to be more productive than kvetching, complaining, or questioning the motives of those who don't share your frustration.

[AussieWebmaster]

I think at some level curated vs unique content was some element in this algo change whether it is too many links in content or comparing content on page with content on pages linked to

Anyone else see anything along this line?

[rish3]

Perhaps the DARPA comparison was a bit over the top. (that wasn't me, by the way)

However, I think it's fair game, in a discussion about a Google-announced Panda update, to discuss motivation, intent, etc.

The direct quote from Google in March 2013 was:

“I don’t expect us to tweet about or confirm current or future Panda updates because they’ll be incorporated into our indexing process and thus be more gradual.”

The way this is rolling out is also new and somewhat curious. It's being spread out in a way that Mozcast, Algoroo, and the like, don't see anything notable. That's despite the announcement saying it's affecting up to 5% of queries, which is one of the larger figures they've offered for an update.

Nailing down their intent might be helpful in developing a strategy to recover.

Some time ago, I recall being tagged as a conspiracy theorist for telling people to be careful with putting more than one site in a single GWT account. My contention is that G was using it to punish otherwise good/compliant sites when one site in the account had issues. I'm certain, in hindsight, that it was good advice.

[aristotle]

Rather than a "conspiracy", to me the situation under discussion here looks more like a Kafkaesque scenario in which nobody knows exactly what the rules are. I think that's the reason for a lot of the complaints and rants.

[Shepherd]

The way this is rolling out is also new and somewhat curious. It's being spread out in a way that Mozcast, Algoroo, and the like, don't see anything notable. That's despite the announcement saying it's affecting up to 5% of queries, which is one of the larger figures they've offered for an update.

That's something there, something is wrong. The original penguin was said to affect approximately 3.1% of search queries in English, we all saw the affects without doubt.

Maybe they uploaded it but forgot to turn it on...

[EditorialGuy]

For Panda 4.1, the announcement said:

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

[brotherhood of LAN]

Just a reminder to keep it on topic

[Shepherd]

Depending on the locale

Good point EG

[trabis]

Depending on the locale...
Do you mean that some locale may not have affected queries?
I understood that all locales would have afected queries, raging from 3% to 5%.

It's late and I might be sleeping already.

[samwest]

@EG -

wandering into discussions of DARPA and unsupported claims that Google is "gaming the SERPs" isn't going to help anyone improve his or her rankings.

Let's get what I said right...I said

I think this Panda announcement may be even more smoke and mirror misdirection to avoid surprise (ie: gaming of the serps)

That does not imply that GOOGLE is gaming the serps, but rather that they might be using DARPA's basic methodologies to avoid surprises, like gaming of the serps (by BH webmasters).

To ignore the fact that some highly advanced military level stuff may be rolled into updates like Panda is pure ignorance. DARPA started Google and bringing in Ms. Dugan was a sign of how they might be doing things from now on. Read their mission statement again. I find it telling.

Wow - I should have issued a shill alert in the OP, at least it spurred some lively discussion in what was winding up as a dying topic.

[brotherhood of LAN]

I'll just mention it again,

The thread is about Panda 4.1 and though I'm a general outsider to the SEO sphere, I suspect that it is a large enough topic in itself with enough facets to it for the discussion to stay on-topic (and if there isn't, I don't see why the thread should get more drawn out). Hardware is cheap nowadays so creating separate threads with separate topics is not a problem. Overarching comments about Google's ethics, business policy and generally non-algo related doesn't do the thread justice. These threads need to stay on message so if you find the topic diverging into another, please start a new thread with that topic, particularly if it should be in the Google Finance forum, thanks. Otherwise you're putting volunteer moderators in the awkward position of editing peoples well-thought out posts, which we don't want to do. :)

[drl1]

I think at some level curated vs unique content was some element in this algo change whether it is too many links in content or comparing content on page with content on pages linked to

Anyone else see anything along this line?

Possibly, in one site I'm observing, and it's the only one I've seen affected in the sample that I have data on.

[1seo]

This will be interesting to see how many people this may hit.

[EditorialGuy]

I think at some level curated vs unique content was some element in this algo change

That would make sense. "Aggregation" is the new Content Farm spam.

[dethfire]

Friday is usually a down day, but it's looking lower than average

[Dymero]

Trends are up after the update. A while back, I expressed my dismay at the increasing number of 9-result SERPs. That trend is still increasing in my niche, and you can imagine my reaction when I saw my first 8-result SERP today.

[samwest]

Aha! I just found a three word term with my site DOMAIN CROWDING the #1, 2 and 3 spot. LOL

Only problem is that the first and second images are also from my my site, but scraped and hosted on some Thailand based site. Can't win 'em all I guess.

I clicked the second image and my virus scanner went wild with some click virus....way to go Google!

[EditorialGuy]

A while back, I expressed my dismay at the increasing number of 9-result SERPs. That trend is still increasing in my niche, and you can imagine my reaction when I saw my first 8-result SERP today.

Bing is missing an opportunity. It should publish 11-result pages and promote itself as "the search engine that gives 110 percent."

[gadget26]

No help here from 4.1. Same old throttled visits.

I am a small business on the web for 16 years, US, ecom. Google loved us up until Panda 1.0 three and a half years ago. It devastated our rankings and has be tightening noose with every panda since.

We have followed webmaster world closely (thanks all!) and made more changes to the site than I can count...and it is vastly better now. All the stats show it. But organic traffic continues to decline.

This update, which I thought was supposed to help sites exactly like ours, has done nothing. It seems pretty obvious to me that google just doesn't want mom-and-pop stores around. Even my adwords ROI continues to decline towards break-even.

So today I deleted my 15 year old site with 1500 carefully cultivated product pages. Monday I sign the bankruptcy papers on my 21 year old business. Six people out of work.

And before you say it, yes, I shouldn't have relied on google for the majority of my traffic. But they sent it to me, so I took it, and made a ton of money off it. Then Panda took it all away. I just wished google would come clean about what their true agenda is. It seems that nearly everything they "announce" eventually turns out to be the opposite of what we see with our own eyes.

Panda 4.1. My assessment: Too little. Too late.

Goodbye all. No reason to read this board anymore.

Thanks for all the helpful information and spirited discussions.

Cheers, it's been a wild ride!

gadget

[iammeiamfree]

A little down most of the week but Friday up 25% over previous Friday and Saturday already up 20+% and it is only midday. Suspect a lot of this extra traffic is coming from Australia and Asia or my stats programme has broken.