Google Panda 4.2 Rolling Out

[netmeg]

According to Searchengineland:

Google has pushed out a Google Panda refresh this weekend, many of you may not have noticed, but this roll out is happening incredibly slowly. Google said the update can take months to fully roll out because it will slowly roll out through your site. The Panda algorithm is still indeed a site-wide algorithm but some of your web pages might not see a change immediately.

Emphasis by me, because WTF.

A Google spokesperson confirmed with us the update did being rolling out this past weekend. They also noted it can take months to fully roll out. Google did not share with us how large of an impact this was on their search results, but they did imply it was a fairly small impact.

I haven't seen any signs of it in any client sites yet, but maybe it'll be "months"

[searchengineland.com...]

[webcentric]

Just today I'm seeing one of my most important pages move from #8 to #6. This is for a US-scoped query. What I see is that a couple of listings that were pushing me down have dropped off the radar. These particular listings we're locality-specific and it's been baffling me for months as to why they were even there in the first place. At least in my niche, and at least for a few queries, results are getting more accurate. I have some big competition and now that the litter has been removed, we're all running neck and neck which is encouraging. BTW, this is an informational niche, not e-commerce.

[Martin Ice Web]

sales originating from Google have dropped to 0 since Saturday. It's as if all shoppers have fled Google and are somewhere else. Traffic is good and stable, but no buyers? Strange.

Same over here. Even calls and mails have from customers have been vanished since.

[MrSavage]

@Hobbs, oh wow, I LOL at your comment. One of the funniest things I've read pretty much anywhere. Thank you so much. It's so classic. I still laugh as a write this. A true hall of fame post if I've ever read one (your opening three lines).

edit: @jestermagic, oh thank you too! Now I LOL with tears down my eyes! So very funny too.

My wife is telling me to shut up. I can't help laughing at those two posts. What a farce this has turned into. Those two comments summarize my feelings to a tee. Thanks guys!

[rish3]

Google said the update can take months to fully roll out

At the recent SMX West conference, Google's Gary Illyes stated that Panda updates “pretty much instantly”

Lollers.

[SuperT]

Curious on how everyone checks whether they have been impacted by Panda this time around? Are you just checking organic traffic or also looking at rankings via Search Console or another tool (given that there's a 2 day delay on those). It's hard for me to tell because weekend traffic tends to be lower but doesn't look much different than other weekends.

[samwest]

Yet another round of punitive updates that affects only those without a big brand name or a briefcase of Benjamins.

[mrengine]

@ Martin Ice Web
How are your search positions doing? I am seeing slight gains but no orders from Google. I checked from multiple IP addresses too, just to break out of the localized results and my search positions are doing just fine. This is crazy. It's like Google has funneled customers to a black hole.

@ SuperT
To see the Panda impact I have to look no further than sales. Google is not sending any, and I mean no sales at all. Page view from Google visitors are down by 40%+. I then look at my most important keywords and some gained positions. Maybe long tails have taken a hit, I don't know. I don't use seo tools to monitor keyword search positions, but it looks like I may have to. Google traffic is up overall, but the quality of traffic is abysmal.

[randle]

Sowing FUD pays..extremely well...

No company has ever used FUD as effectively.

Try not to get so caught up in it.

[webcentric]

No company has ever used FUD as effectively.

Try not to get so caught up in it.

All we need to do is change the name of this forum to "Google FUD and Ridicule" and we can have a great conversation. At least it would be a purposeful discussion e.g. stress relieving for some.

[petehall]

My thoughts are give this update time.

In the past I think announcements have always followed a successful rollout and this time we've been informed on initiation. Therefore the impact compared with previous updates seems insignificant.... at least for now.

The mobile update did more or less nothing for a week!

[robzilla]

How long does it take Google to crawl the web?

They've previously said they're working to speed up the Panda roll-outs. The current update took nearly 10 months to arrive, and instead of a week or so, it will now take "months" to fully roll out. If that's the amount of time it takes Google to crawl every page on the internet, then does that perhaps confirm (or suggest) the arrival of the "real-time" Panda [webmasterworld.com]?

In the past I think announcements have always followed a successful rollout and this time we've been informed on initiation

Exactly! :-)

[Martin Ice Web]

@mrengine, we gained and lost positions. Traffic like ours is down by 40%. What makes me wonder is that pages i worked on don't see any effect.

But i agree to petehall ad think waiting is a good thing right now. One thing is different this time to the other panda updates. All other updates pushed the site in the first instance and then it got hit. But this time it got hit directly and i hope after the hit the will be the push.

But buyers are gone like you said.

[mrengine]

@Martin Ice Web
Oddly enough since my last post two orders came in from Google visitors. Page views appear to be climbing as well. You may be right about waiting... Fingers crossed - for both of us.

[seoskunk]

I see no recovery on e commerce site. I was waiting for this update to see if it recovered. Should I give it more time or just kill off the site now do you think?

[Leosghost]

Work on alternative sources of traffic and customers..If we all woke up tomorrow and heard that some thing had befallen Larry, Sergey and Eric, and Google was offline for the foreseeable future, would you have to shut down your ecom site and business ?..
Having ( and putting into action ) a plan B , plan C, plan D etc , allows one to be aware of what G gets upto, but not let their shenanigans be the focus of your business..

In ecom especially, Google traffic should be a flavour of the "jam"..they should not be the source of your bread and butter..

[Lapizuli]

Good advice if you can do it, often given out by folks who had their foot in the door early. But for many, Google is the bread and butter, and I think that's a natural progression. In the American Wild West, too, some hardy, lucky, and visionary early birds set up town and established their businesses before there were defined roads. But it was once the roads were built that we could convert to a true car-based society. And then both businesses and customers had to rely on the roads and mass-market media for advertising and access, because local word of mouth between people within strolling distance did not have a far enough reach.

Soon it won't be only Google. Someone else besides Google will build more roads. But right now, they're managing the main highway, and trying to work with them is kinda necessary. Replacing them with something better would be awesome. There are so many models that could work. But right now, not every business can thrive without them. Some business models are founded on search. That in itself isn't stupid; it's a risk, but it's ALWAYS risky to venture into new territory. And there are no sure things in new territory.

Dang. I wasn't gonna do this again. I'm a writer, not a webmaster, Jim.

[keyplyr]

Yet Larry, Sergey and Eric have effectively positioned their shenanigans as the jam on our bread and butter.

[Ebuzz]

I've noticed that SERPs for new pages are taking incredibly slow to get ranked. Since it's taking so long to roll out, the best thing to do is just carry on like nothing is happening (which is what Google wants everyone to be doing, I assume).

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:04 pm (utc) on Oct 1, 2015]
[edit reason] changing subscription preferences at member's request [/edit]

[alexsam]

I feel there is nothing to worry because my content is very good ;D

[badboy1309]

OMG Plz don't do that

[petehall]

Seeing some positive movement across the board - more so on mobile results. Finally.

[lucy24]

Google said this impacted about 2-3% of English language queries.

Wait, wait, isn't that what they said last time they changed something? And the time before that? And the time before that again? For variety's sake, I'd like to see an update that promises to have sweeping effects on all searches all the time for all users everywhere.

[RedBar]

So far this morning I am seeing my lowest-ever traffic across all, not just one or two, all my widget domains except for one small, local hotel site I run which has now become the busiest site ... congratulations G just how do you manage to fubar so all-encompassingly well?

[flanok]

We live in an age where speed is key, or site load time is even judged by it. We get news within seconds of it being released. We see news coverage from all around the world in seconds. And even when it comes to judging the quality of our website it takes ------- a 10 month wait and then another 2 months to refresh. What is going on?


I hope in a few months they announce this was an experiment to see if Panda can work alongside the algo hence the page by page time scenario.

Otherwise how do we even know if we have a Panda Issue and not another algo issue?

[RedBar]

Otherwise how do we even know if we have a Panda Issue and not another algo issue?

Good question however is it any/many of us that have an issue or is it simply Google itself that has the issue?

I have been constructing corporate B2B brochure sites for 20+ years now, there's never been any kind of blackhatting or attempt to manipulate ever, in the late 90s I even worked with Google on their algo, yet today I am seeing a swathe of sites with hardly any traffic whatsoever.

Now just what could I have done wrong over night to deserve this crap?

Ok, I know, give it a couple of days and let's see what rolls through however I have a very, very bad feeling about this since I know there's nothing wrong with any of my sites therefore just how many others are going to get caught up in this carnage and be incorrectly blamed by their customers/bosses for no valid reason whatsoever?

[engine]

Otherwise how do we even know if we have a Panda Issue and not another algo issue?

That's exactly what Google wants to achieve so that we can't work out what it is that knocked the site. The less we know, the more Google has control.

For some time now, I have had a feeling that Google has struggled with its own technology. I may be wrong, but the algo, the manual and automated penalties all have to be factored in. Make a change and it affects other aspects of the algo, perhaps surfacing sites which had a different penalty.

Anyhow, back on topic: I'm watching a few sites where i might possibly expect a penalty, and some where Panda is not expected to impact. I'm analysing positioning and traffic. Those where it might be expected could use some fresh and better quality content, but, i'm not making any changes until I have a loss, or decline in traffic. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

What are you doing to monitor your sites?

[Martin Ice Web]

@redbar

Ok, I know, give it a couple of days and let's see what rolls through

located in germany, this panda pushed site with very, very thin content. In my niche there are site with 3 sentence on it. For sure the keyword is found 3-5 times in the html-code. I think this can´t be the results they want to have.
But as far as i can see, this panda has the biggest impact since 3 years. So this can´t just be a data push it must be a algo change too. That would explain the long time between last two pandas. Maybe it is even harder over here in germany.
My niche looks like the who is who. Smaller sites are completely gone. And in germany big manufacturers are going to open their own ecom shops. This shops are now rocketfast going to the top while having a link from the brands base site. That makes brands main site and the ecom shop in a row on first serps page.
Amazon "result pages" are doing great right now, as do ebay phb pages.
Domain crowding is on a high level with even 4 times same domain in a row.

My traffic goes from 100% to 10% all over the day. Switching datacenters? Nevertheless the traffic is worse and unrelated, buyers are far away.

I hope that this is just all effects due to the fact that panda is still runing. If not then google is not longer a source to find other sites than brands.

[netmeg]

My one client's broken (B2B) ecommerce site (re-launch got pushed out yet another month, sigh) has been going gangbusters this week, averaging five figures a day in sales which we've *never* done consistently. I don't really see much difference in the keywords that are ranking or the number of keywords that are ranking, but the organic traffic is through the roof. I don't think the site was ever hit by Panda, but it's a weird coincidence that it should see such a big jump this week.

Everything else (my sites and client sites) are pretty much as I would expect for this time of year. No big changes up or down.

[Shepherd]

I don't know if we have ever had any panda issues either, traffic for us has been up ever so slightly this week, sales Monday and Tuesday were very good with Tuesday being one of the top 3 days of the year for revenue and conversion rate.

AND THEN, Wednesday/Thursday the conversion rate tanked, down over 36%. With a drop like that and no traffic changes I would normally think server/payment processing issues but I can't find any.

Netmeg, please let me know if your client sees a drop off like ours in the next few days, hope not.

[netmeg]

I hope not either. It's even weirder because I just discovered that the client's biggest competitor has taken all our SKUs and stuffed them into divs with display:none around them, and they're actually outranking us on a few. But we're still selling like hotcakes. This July has been weird.