Last Thursday Google’s Pierre Farr announced on his Google+ page that Panda 4.1 is currently in the process of rolling out. The last major Panda update hit on May 20th and impacted an estimated ~7.5 percent of English search queries. Although Panda 4.1 is said to have impacted only ~3.5 percent of English search queries, it is still being considered a “significant” update.
According to Farr, this update is not just a simple refresh. This time Google has added several new signals to the algorithm, to help Panda more effectively and precisely identify low-quality content. As a result, higher quality, small and medium-sized websites should see a lift in search rankings. However, some websites weren’t so lucky.
Judging by some of the discussions taking place in the Webmaster World thread, it sounds like a decent amount of sites we’re impacted. As with any major update, we won’t definitively know how extensive the impacts are until after the dust settles.
Here’s a historical breakdown of confirmed Panda updates:
Panda Update 1, AKA
Panda 1.0, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
Panda Update 2, AKA
Panda 2.0, April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
Panda Update 3, May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
Panda Update 4, June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
Panda Update 5, July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
Panda Update 6, Aug. 12, 2011 (6-9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
Panda Update 7, Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
Panda Update 8 AKA
Panda 3.0, Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
Panda Update 9, Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
Panda Update 10, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
Panda Update 11, Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
Panda Update 12, March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
Panda Update 13, April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
Panda Update 14, April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
Panda Update 15, June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
Panda Update 16, June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
Panda Update 17, July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
Panda Update 18, Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
Panda Update 19, Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
Panda Update 20 , Sept. 27, 2012 (2.4% English queries, impacted, belatedly announced
Panda Update 21, Nov. 5, 2012 (1.1% of English-language queries in US; 0.4% worldwide; confirmed, not announced)
Panda Update 22, Nov. 21, 2012 (0.8% of English queries were affected; confirmed, not announced)
Panda Update 23, Dec. 21, 2012 (1.3% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
Panda Update 24, Jan. 22, 2013 (1.2% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
Panda Update 25, March 15, 2013 (confirmed as coming; not confirmed as having happened)
Panda Update 26 AKA
Panda 4.0, May 20, 2014 (7.5% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
Panda Update 27 AKA
Panda 4.1, Sept. 25, 2014 (3-5% of queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
List courtesy of Search Engine Land
Photo credit: Flickr user George Lu
