Difference between "core algorithm" and "real time"?

[webmuppet]

In a post about Panda on thesempost.com the said this

There have been some rumors going around that core algo = real time. Google simply told me it was core, no mention was made to it being real time

What technically is the difference between core algo and real time. Surely these mean the same thing?

[martinibuster]

Real time refers to how often the SERPs are updated. The Core Algorithm is the what sorts out the indexed web pages and assigns ranking scores to the pages.

[Robert Charlton]

There have been some rumors going around that core algo = real time

webmuppet... here's an update on the TheSEMPost story. To put this in context, the comment was made about the relationship between the core algo and Panda, and had some bearing on how people were interpreting the update.

The confusion gets complicated enough that IMO it's not worth sorting out precisely who misunderstood whom and when... there were a lot of people cross-communicating on Twitter, and lots else happening at the same time over the past several days of serps churn. I hope, though, that this is the clarification you need...

Google Panda is a Core Ranking Signal, It’s Not Real Time
January 13, 2016 by Jennifer Slegg
[thesempost.com...]

Jennifer Slegg wrote...

In my Google Panda Algo article, one of the statements given to me by Google was that Panda was now a core ranking signal. But there was some confusion because people assumed this meant that Panda was now real time. But Google confirmed that this is NOT true. Panda is not real-time

Google, I gather, is still working toward a real time Panda, but it's not there yet.

As I interpret and reconcile what was being said by various bloggers who were commenting on this... while Panda is in the core algorithm, the Panda component of the algorithm still isn't automatically updating, and the recent serps changes that we've been seeing (which Google confirmed were in fact core algorithm updates), therefore did not include any Panda or Penguin updates, though the non-Panda updates may have affected some Panda sites.

Hope that makes sense... I can more or less follow the logic.

[EditorialGuy]

If you think of Panda as a "quality score," it makes perfect sense. The quality score is calculated every so often (not in real time), and once it's set for a given site, it can be used as a scoring factor in the real-time core algorithm.

Also, the Panda algorithm used to calculate the quality score could be tweaked from time to time, and the importance of that quality score in the core ranking algorithm could go up or down over time.

[dipper]

In short data can be collected in real-time but not factored into the results until a manual interaction - Panda has to be delayed like this to allow enough information to be collected about the website, the niche and the Internet in general (after all it most likely factors in improvements in a niche, a weighted algorithm). Also, Pengiun will have be like this too - otherwise it could be immediately reverse engineered.

Real-time results means changes are immediate.

[EditorialGuy]

Pengiun will have be like this too - otherwise it could be immediately reverse engineered.

That's a great point (and one that tends to be overlooked).

[vlexo]

@Robert Charlton: So are you alluding to the fact that there could have been some Panda-like qualities within the recent core algorithmic updates? The site I work on was hit by Phantom II (which Google also named a Core Algorithmic update), then we appeared to have been hit by Panda 4.2 when that rolled out. We removed a large UGC section on our website that was filling up with spam (not in time for Panda 4.2 unfortunately) and saw a slow regression in rank in Q3/4.

The recent updates have seen us return for to our previous rank (almost the same as what it was before Phantom II).

[dipper]

EditorialGuy - we will probably see one of the bigger feature piece SEO bloggers, Danny Sullivan, Marie Haynes, Jennifer Slegg, Barry Schwartz, Glen Gabe, etc run a story soon (not sure why it hasn't happened before tbh) - "Why Penguin, and Panda will NEVER be realtime" - because in terms of realtime ranking benefit or loss they can't ever be - put simply, it gives away too much IP, can be reverse engineered, and gamed easily.

[EditorialGuy]

Dipper: "Real time" can be defined in different ways. It doesn't have to mean that Google calculates a quality score (Panda) or a questionable-link score (Penguin) in response to every search query. It could simply mean that each site's most recent Panda or Penguin score is accessed by the ranking algorithm in real time. (Similarly, the Panda or Penguin score could be calculated by a Googlebot algorithm, instead of by a dedicated Panda or Penguin run.)

[Robert Charlton]

vlexo, I just posted in a parallel thread about my best guesses regarding this update. No point posting in two places....

Google confirms Jan 2016 core algo update was not Panda
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4786324.htm [webmasterworld.com]

I've always thought of Panda as a separate "layer" in the algo. I'm not sure whether layers as such are preserved in the core algo, but I do not think that Google recomputed those Panda elements for this update. As was noted in the analysis that I refer to in my post, the changes noted were all in "high quality" sites only... looking (I'm guessing) at semantics, QDF, and using RankBrain, and thus separate from Panda.

Hard to say whether, without some serious cross-checking I'm not about to do whether your site might have been hit by Panda 4.2... but it sounds like what you were hit by might not have been Panda at all. I really don't know. "Spam" is more likely to be seen as Penguin than as Panda... but this update wasn't Penguin either.

Congratulations on recovering.