Google’s announced that another Panda Update is being unleashed on
its results, one that it says will impact 0.7% of queries. We’re calling
it Panda 3.92, through we’re wondering if it’s time to declare Panda
4.0 upon us.
Here’s the official
news from Google:
Panda refresh is rolling out—expect some flux over the next few days. Fewer than 0.7% of queries noticeably affected:
http://goo.gl/woSU3
The link leads to Google’s official
announcement of the
first Panda Update back in 2011.
Panda Update History
We’ve had a string of updates since then, as follows, along with the percentage of queries Google said would be impacted:
- Panda Update 1.0, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
- Panda Update 2.0, April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
- Panda Update 2.1, May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
- Panda Update 2.2, June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
- Panda Update 2.3, July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
- Panda Update 2.4, Aug. 12, 2011 (6-9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
- Panda Update 2.5, Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
- Panda Update 3.0, Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
- Panda Update 3.1, Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
- Panda Update 3.2, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
- Panda Update 3.3, Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
- Panda Update 3.4, March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
- Panda Update 3.5, April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
- Panda Update 3.6, April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
- Panda Update 3.7, June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
- Panda Update 3.8, June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
- Panda Update 3.9, July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
- Panda Update 3.91, Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
- Panda Update 3.92, Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
Numbering Panda: From Panda 1 to Panda 2
Google doesn’t always announce these updates. Sometimes, we get
reports of ranking changes being noticed, and then after the fact, we
get a Google confirmation. Sometimes Google does announce them, either
the day the go live (as is the case today) or shortly after the fact)
When Google announces or confirms and update, sometimes it explains
how much of an impact it is expected to have on the search results. The
very first Panda Update was huge, estimated by Google to have an impact
on 11.8 percent of all queries done on Google in the US. In contrast,
today’s announced update is said to have an impact on less than 1% of
queries globally.
Google doesn’t number these updates. We began doing that when the
second Panda Update happened. Since it was the second, we called it
Panda 2.0. At times, people from Google have occasionally used our
numbers, as have others (notably on SEOmoz’s excellent
chart of Google algorithm changes).
From Panda 2 To Panda 3
When the third Panda release happened, we were ready to call it Panda 3.0. But
Google itself said
that this wouldn’t be right, that it was a minor update that wasn’t
worthy of a full increase in number. That’s why we dubbed it Panda 2.1.
Following updates were all minor, so we carried along with the “point” naming, in other words, Panda 2.2, Panda 2.3 and so on.
In hindsight, we probably should have dubbed Panda 2.4 to be Panda 3.0, because it was such a major change in that
Panda rolled out beyond the English language
(except for Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages). Still, perhaps
we’re to be forgiven given what happened when we finally did get to
Panda 3.0.
You see, Panda 2.5 came and went, yet another minor update. Then we had a warning of
“Panda Flux” get issued, which made it sound like the schedule of Panda Updates happening every few weeks was changing to an ongoing update.
Instead, Google
belatedly said
that one of the updates we numbered as minor should have been tagged as
major (and thus warranting a 3.0 figure). We did the best we could to
figure out which one that was, which is why the October 19 update became
Panda 3.0.
Getting To Panda 4.0
When do we finally get Panda 4.0? I suppose it’s whenever we want to
declare it. Potentially, it happened in March. I say that because March
is the last time Google said the impact on queries would be above 1%.
In hindsight, this seems an obvious metric to use, how big an update
is as given by Google. But as I’ve explained, Google doesn’t always give
that estimate. In fact,
with Panda Update 3.5,
no one even knew that a Panda Update had happened. Because it came
around the time of the Penguin Update, all the ranking changes that
normally signal an Panda Update were masked by Penguin Update changes.
Only Google itself commenting that a Panda Update had also happened
alerted everyone.
As the updates kept coming, we hit something unexpected. We were
running out of point numbers. That’s why we ended up with Panda 3.91
last month and Panda 3.92 today.
Panda 20, Anyone?
We could go back and say that Panda Update 3.4 is being renamed to
Panda 4.0, which would bring today to Panda 3.7. But there’s no
guarantee we’ll have another major-enough Panda Update to get us away
from having a Panda 3.98 or Panda 3.933 or … well, you get the point.
I’m against going back and renaming things, because people get used
to a name, so changing adds to confusion, rather than clarifies it.
Instead, I’d be curious to hear comments from others on how you’d like
to see Panda naming (or numbering) go forward.
One thought is to lose the entire point system that started with
Panda 2.1. If we’d ignored Google’s advice and just made Panda 2.1 into
Panda 3, regardless of how “major” it was, we’d be at Panda 19 right
now.
That leads me to think the next Panda update should be called Panda
20, regardless of how big it is, then going forward we simple increase
the number by one.
source:searchengineland(dot)com
