Wednesday, 14 March 2012

Official: Google Panda 3.6 Update Is Live

1. CFor context, the initial Panda change affected about 12% of queries to a significant degree; this algorithm affects about 3.1% of queries in English to a degree that a regular user might notice. The change affects roughly 3% of queries in languages such as German, Chinese, and Arabic, but the impact is higher in more heavily-spammed languages. For example, 5% of Polish queries change to a degree that a regular user might notice.

Google is currently running a Panda update, I believe it started sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning.
A 20 search quality changes post. Google said:
This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.
A senior member said yesterday:
Seeing a huge change yesterday (Sunday 26th) - organic referrals up across the board. Almost 300% increase compared to previous Sunday. Still shooting 50% less than pre-Panda (April 2011), but I removed a lot of content so would expect it to be.
Other webmasters at the forums also took notice but it seems like it is still rolling out. Google said, "a handful [of these updates] are actually rolling out today and tomorrow."
This update is just a "data refresh," like the Panda 3.2 update on January 15th. A data refresh means there were no changes to the Panda algorithm, it means they only ran the algorithm again. So some sites were hit hard and some sites were freed and seeing a boost in traffic. Of course, a data refresh can be serious for sites, if they are on either side of the coin.
Like our one year Panda anniversary poll said, 87% are still suffering from Panda. So I hope many of you benefited from it.

Google Panda 2.5 has website proprietor curiosity after seeing the personal effects of organic traffic declining on 27 September 2011, then recovering on October 3, only 20 decline again on October 13. The Google algorithm has changed due to incorporating new signals and updating the recalculation of site performance within the algorithms. It updated data about site performance after the last recalculation. These updates have happened several times within days or weeks of each other, and occurred in both the Panda algorithm and the recalculation updates.

History of Google Panda

* Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011
* Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011
* Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011
* Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011
* Panda Update 2.5.3 October 19/20th
* Panda Update 2.5.2 October 13th
* Panda Update 2.5.1 on October 9th
* Panda Update 3.1 November 18th 2011
* Panda Update 3.2: January 18, 2012
* Panda Update 3.3: Feb, 2012

* Panda Update 3.4: March, 2012
* Panda Update 3.5: 19 Apr , 2012
* Panda Update 3.6: 27 Apr, 2012
* Panda Update 3.7: Coming Soon



Google Panda 3.6





This was an unusual update being that Panda 3.5 was released on April 19th, making a 8 day gap between 3.5 and this update, 3.6. Typically Google pushes out a refresh of Panda every 6 weeks or so.


A Google Spokesperson said:


    We’re continuing to iterate on our Panda algorithm as part of our commitment to returning high-quality sites to Google users. This most recent update is one of the over 500 changes we make to our ranking algorithms each year.



Google Panda 3.2


Google said this happened about a week or so, so I would place this Google Panda 3.2 update as happening on January 18, 2012.

Why 3.2 and not 2.x? Well, I spoke with a Googler back in late November, they expressed that one of the 2.x updates we labeled as a “minor” update, should have likely been named as a major update and thus labelled a 3.0 update. I personally believe that was an October Panda update, that we did not cover here, but I do not have confirmation on that. In fact, Google does not number their updates, so it is hard to nail down.

The 3.1 update was likely the the minor update from November and now this being a basic “data refresh,” we’d label this as a minor update as well, and call this the 3.2 update.

There was a long gap between this update and the update from November because Google promised us no Panda updates during holidays.







* Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011
* Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011
* Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011
* Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011
* Panda Update 2.5.3 October 19/20th
* Panda Update 2.5.2 October 13th
* Panda Update 2.5.1 on October 9th
* Panda Update 3.1 November 18th 2011
* Panda Update 3.2: January 18, 2012
* Panda Update 3.3: Feb, 2012
* Panda Update 3.4: March, 2012
* Panda Update 3.5: 19 Apr , 2012
* Panda Update 3.6: 27 Apr, 2012
* Panda Update 3.7: Coming Soon


Panda 3.3 Update
Here’s what Google says about its latest Panda-related change:

Panda update. This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.
This sounds very similar to Panda 3.2, which happened in mid-January and was described only as a “data refresh” and not related to new or changed ranking signals.

Panda was launched a year ago — don’t miss the full background in our recent story, Infographic: The Google Panda Update, One Year Later.

Postscript, Feb. 28th: Google tells us that the Panda data update took place yesterday, February 27th. The company declined to share any additional information about the “link evaluation” item below.
Evaluating Links
Google says it’s getting rid of a link evaluation signal that it’s been using for years. This one’s sure to prompt discussion:

Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.
We’ve reached out to Google in the past, asking for further clarification on the items in these monthly roundups. The company has indicated that the blog post says everything Google wants to say. That, along with Google’s understandable (and necessary) reluctance to give away too many details about ranking signals, leads me to assume we won’t be getting anything more than the above about this.

A link evaluation signal that’s been used for years is now turned off? The SEO mind races….

Local Search Rankings
Here’s another one, along with the link evaluation signal, that I’m actually surprised Google would so openly reveal. The company says traditional algorithmic ranking factors are now playing a bigger part in triggering local search results:

Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal.
Traditional SEO has played a bigger part in Google’s local search since the launch of Places Search in late 2010. And now it sounds like that dial is being turned up a little higher, too.

Google’s post also says local results are being improved because of a “new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably. Now we’re better able to detect when both queries and documents are local to the user.”

Soon you will find panda update ........

These changes have affected even high-quality pages since September 27 because Panda uses a site-wide assessment. There are some recovery strategies to overcome any negative effects. These
include making sure you create valuable content so that your page is the best answer when queried on the web. If many pages on your site are about the same topic, you should consolidate any duplication. Google wants to make the sure that you are creating a valuable and engaging experience for the user by providing easy navigation that is useful and does not obscure your content with too many ads. Google Panda 2.5 is designed to award site builders who provide engaging content and pages where people want to stay, link to, and return to, while sharing, and otherwise showing happiness.

No comments:

Post a Comment