On December 14th we reported pretty significant signs that there was a Google update brewing and all the other metrics and third-party services we checked afterwards indeed confirmed our findings.
But when Google responded to our request for confirmation, they said - sorry there was no update. It felt as if the community and all the metrics were in lala land, i.e. dreaming it up.
Of course, there was an update a week later that Google confirmed as a Panda update.
The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread learned of the news that there was no confirmed update, a webmaster said at 9:27 am on Dec 18, 2012 (utc -5):
That just shows you how clueless Google is!
The question is, is it Google that is confused and clueless or is it us?
When so many people see significant changes in the Google search results and Google is not aware of anything that may have caused it - it makes you think that Google is either clueless or they are hiding something from us.
I suspect 50% feel Google is hiding something and 50% feel someone is confused.
I for one think Google was hiding something after the fact, like something happened and the right people didn't communicate about it properly and then it was too late.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
