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Tuesday, Google began rolling out Panda 4.0 and it still may be rolling out, but by now, you should know how, if any, you were impacted by the Panda 4.0 release.
I want you all to check your analytics, filter it by Google organic traffic only and see if you see a drop, increase or no change on around May 20th and May 21st.
Here is the poll:
Please share the poll with as many people as you can, I want to get as many votes as possible. I will share the results in the near future.
For more on Panda 4.0, see our story here and also check out the winners and losers chart for Panda 4.0.
Forum discussion continued at Twitter, BlackHatWorld, Google+, Google Webmaster Help, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for pandas
Comments:
Premature-By-Far
05/22/2014 01:33 pm
STUPID post!!!! Everything is still bouncing around so this post is at least a week early. The results of this at this stage will be complete junk!
Marie Haynes
05/22/2014 01:48 pm
I have a weird case. It's a site that was hit by multiple Panda updates. No work was ever done on the site to fix the Panda issues, but over the last few days it recovered to even better levels than before it was originally hit. Here are the analytics.
Jameel
05/22/2014 02:16 pm
I could not understand why Expedia.ca and Travelocity.ca on very high volume keywords like cheap flights are coming in top results? they have the same title description and even their page content then why google has them in top positions? What does google get by putting two websites with same content on top 5 ?
Premature-By-Far
05/22/2014 02:22 pm
A recovery or still bouncing in the mix? I think talking of recoveries 3 days in to a major update is stupid. I expect all the Indian spammers to come out crying or whooping but you Marie ...tsk tsk...
Marie Haynes
05/22/2014 02:23 pm
Well so far, it's a recovery. Traffic and conversions are up even more today. We'll see though.
kingofguests
05/22/2014 02:23 pm
your stupid
MJ
05/22/2014 02:42 pm
you're
Ben Griffiths
05/22/2014 02:47 pm
Definitely not a false positive previously? IE you're sure this site has Panda issues (in your opinion), other than by looking at traffic?
Durant Imboden
05/22/2014 03:10 pm
For us, Google traffic began climbing on Sunday. Yesterday, Google "organic traffic" was up 163 percent, and today looks like more of the same. We never had a precipitous drop in rankings as a result of Panda, but we did have a lot of relatively modest drops (e.g., five or ten places, starting with Panda 1.0), mostly as a result of changes in the algorithm that--whether by intent or accident--tended to promote megasites and big brands at the expense of small specialist sites. Now we're back to ranking higher than About.com, TripAdvisor, and other non-specialist megasites (at least for the important topics that I monitor).
Simon
05/22/2014 03:34 pm
most Panda updates results are felt pretty immediately. If you haven't seen drop or rise yet, you're unaffected.
Premature-By-Far
05/22/2014 03:52 pm
A Panda rollout is not instant. It takes several days or more to complete and seeing as people are still bouncing around, I would suggest it is not over yet. It is like declaring the president with only only half the votes counted... GWB anyone :-)
wertwert
05/22/2014 03:53 pm
It hasn't finished rolling out yet.
Marie Haynes
05/22/2014 05:23 pm
The site has some odd architecture that probably confuses crawlers. It has good content though. My thought is that perhaps the latest iteration of Panda is able to see past crawling issues provided that they don't interfere with user experience. But, it's hard to say. The site saw a dip that coincided with several Panda refreshes previously.
Miguel Araujo
05/22/2014 07:53 pm
mi sites are ok, this site http://www.crearcorreo.mx/ is up and down now
mercan
05/22/2014 08:20 pm
obama anyone? :/
JustSojournerTruth
05/22/2014 11:24 pm
Key topic: Google 'Search Quality' fiasco -- GOOGLE HYPOCRISY & Predatory Corruption re: obscene fraudulent nonsense-string (scraped names) WebSpam that is prevalent in Google Search Results > Question: Is Google deliberately abetting corrupt obscene fraudulent Israeli/Russian-jewish organized-crime WebSpam & WebSCAM porn for profit ?? Related, significant info. re: Google Corp.: http://johannesmehlem.com/google-search-quality-at-seo-campixx-2014/ (& see Link, July 2013) "Google gets Lowest Score Ever in Customer Satisfaction Survey" => http://searchengineland.com/google-sees-lowest-score-ever-in-customer-satisfaction-survey-167600 >> also, view: "Customer Service Scoreboard" site (note: Google Corp. has 'Terrible" rating) => http://www.customerservicescoreboard.com/Google Please be aware that... ('Google groupie') Ashley Berman Hale serves as an operative shill for Israeli/Russian-Jewish organized crime protecting their 'Porn Empire' -- this explains why her comments are uselessly snarky and she is deliberately unhelpful to the victims of corrupt, obscene, fraudulent (scraped names, phone#) WebSpam sites -- corrupt (random nonsense-string) Spam-Junk sites which are clandestinely abetted by Google Corp. (for profit) and which ludicrously proliferate in typical awful-quality Google search results. * please note: I am honestly reporting the above info. -- I myself am jewish heritage & I'm the daughter of holocaust survivors -- however, the public should realize it is a FACT that many criminal-scam websites perpetrating 'search abuse', (including obscene & fraudulent scraped names, phone# etc.) WebSpam sites, are controlled by Israeli/Russian-Jewish organized crime -- and are harbored/facilitated and protected or even promoted by Google Corporation. ========== ASHLEY BERMAN HALE provides 'cover' for Google Corp. harmful corruption & lack of responsible business practices... please note: I assuredly guarantee that Google Corp. affiliates immediately remove any corrupt WebScam listings that mention themselves ! > Google Corp. affiliates protect themselves but not YOU -- the general public -- from corrupt obscene fraudulent WebSpam (scraped names, phone#, etc.) that is creepily, awfully abundant in typical Google search results ! => Google's HYPOCRISY & deleterious corporate practices ! Google's so-called SPAM REPORTS are apparently USELESS wastes of time! > Attention: MATT CUTTS, Google 'Search Quality' Team (& affiliated Google staff & Google shills) Please note: Ashley's prior "Webmaster Central" comments are not relevant, because as I stated, I already prevously submitted Google Spam Reports several times -- And... the (supposed) Google standards-violating corrupt obscene WebSpam site is quite BLATANTLY & OBVIOUSLY using randomly SCRAPED Names & words, as displayed by Google in the crappy search results NONSENSE-String SNIPPET (shown below) ! WHY has Google 'search quality' apparently DETERIORATED, in general ?? Unfortunately, Google 'search results' are chockfull of corrupt, harmfully fraudulent, erroneous & meaningless nonsense-string (random scraped words/names hodgepodge) listings -- including ludicrous & obscene SNIPPETS that display people's full names & business names, fraudulently mis-used within WEBSPAM SEARCH ABUSE !! see egregious example -- this type of sleazy WebSpam which Google Corp. seems to abet... => Note: Ashley Berman Hale thinks that the fraudulent mis-use of randomly scraped names is not problematic for... other people (for the 'peons'), but let's see how she likes to be exploited by Google Corp. sleazy corrupt recklessness when it happens to her: !!LOOKING FOR CASUAL SAFE SECURE SEX!! droom design ... www.gaymafia.info/217.html ... homes.com www.for rent las.com www.vegas.comwww ...... ASHLEY BERMAN HALE Cisco ... teacher leani may mp jocks.com www.oral sex pastoralopenings.com www.sk marine ... =========== WHY is Google Corp. seemingly promoting & proliferating this obscene and fraudulent scraped-names nonsense garbage ?? -- Exactly WHO is profiteering from deliberately awful-quality, crappy & sleazy search results !! >>>>>> Attn: Alan Eustace, Amit Singhal, Matt Cutts and GOOGLE 'Search Quality' Team See example of corrupt obscene nonsense-string (search abuse) WebSpam that is fraudulently & erroneously mis-using my full name, which is displayed in Google snippets. Note: I don't have any connection whatsoever with this disgusting corrupt website, which has obviously scraped my name and other contents of random names & words... (see problem snippet below) = Google Corporation's typical crappy, misleading & fraudulent OBSCENE SPAM-JUNK 'search result' SNIPPET => !!LOOKING FOR CASUAL SAFE SECURE SEX!! droom design ... www.gaymafia.info/217.html ... homes.com www.for rent las.com www.vegas.com .... Matt Cutts ... teacher leani may mp jocks.com Larry Page www.oral sex pastoralopenings.com www.sk marine ... !!LOOKING FOR CASUAL SAFE SECURE SEX!! droom design ... www.gaymafia.info/217.html corrupt Google WebSpam ... Amanda Rosenberg ... Amit Singhal ... typical Google crappy search result ... homes.com www.for rentlas.com John Mueller www.vegas.com ....Matt Cutts ... teacher leani may mp jocks.com Larry Page www.oral sex pastoralopenings.com Sergey Brin www.sk marine ... Sundar Pichai ..... Alan Eustace --> Attention: GOOGLE EMPLOYEES REMOVE THIS (Fraudulent Search Abuse) Snippet IMMEDIATELY ! -- The Google 'Web Removal Tool' procedure has been USELESS & INEFFECTIVE !!! Also, I have tried filling out Google 'Spam Report' form several times to no avail ! This is the specific 'Search Abuse' WEBSPAM site => www.gaymafia.info/217.html ADDITIONAL NOTE! = I recently discovered to my shock that the above-listed (corrupt fraudulent obscene) website is a Google Corp. ADVERTISER which actually posts advertisements on Google+ (Google Plus) pages !!! > Google Corp. in recent years conducts itself in a deleteriously callous manner toward the general public. ###
wertwert
05/22/2014 11:50 pm
I'm about as anti-Google as someone can get and even I have to say WTF to this noise... If this is XRumer spam then you totally suck at web spam.
iamme
05/23/2014 01:56 am
i do agree things have not settled yet. Previous updates were done in 1-2 days, but now the earth is still shaking. I know , cause my site gained another 20% in google organic traffic in the last 12 hours...
Mike
05/23/2014 04:55 am
On one of my sites, the pattern compared to yours is eerily similar. I get far less impressions than you do, but the pattern is almost spot on. I, too, saw a big recovery during this latest update and have actually set new records the past two days. I'm even seeing my site come up for two search results on the first page of Google (sometimes 1 & 2) for some of my most profitable keywords. Not sure about your site, but my site is an affiliate site. About half of the content has no affiliate links and the other half has heavy affiliate links, all no-followed. Although my site is an affiliate site, my site has phenomenal content and converts like crazy. The "positive user experience" metrics are there, which is why the slow and painful traffic decrease (as you experienced) was so frustrating. Since this update, my affiliate referrals have gone up 3x and my adsense revenues have nearly doubled across that and 2 other sites I have. ...And I'm still too uncertain I should be celebrating. I'm sort of scared to. LOL!
Mike
05/23/2014 04:57 am
Source?
YooLotto A
05/23/2014 08:26 am
Yes its affected those website who work against the google guidelines.. but we do work according to the google guidelines. so my website www.yoolotto.com not effected by this update
Goran Gligorin
05/23/2014 11:09 am
My site sadly dropped a few places. I'm still waiting for the final drop, though. The funny thing is that I was noticing a traffic drop every since May 1. Any of you noticed that too? My main rankings, didn't drop until Panda 4.0, though.
alexbalanoff
05/23/2014 11:36 am
Any update rollout takes about 2 weeks to stabilize rankings.
MusicMotivated1
05/23/2014 12:24 pm
my site was increasing every week late last year. usually my site has at least 20 visitors by 6am pacific time. so far today i have 4 visitors lol. i quit.
Rony
05/23/2014 01:12 pm
Hi Goran, i recently found one article on recovery.. I hope it will help you. Check this out : http://goo.gl/Bq3cI0 And this one also : https://plus.google.com/+NeilPatelmarketer/posts/KCHFxkFg9Bp
David Boozer
05/23/2014 01:17 pm
Hope that helps your test....I was never hurt by any change or differenet version. I guess they were right, write it like you own it and engage....
Goran Gligorin
05/23/2014 01:19 pm
My site didn't get any penalties in GWT and my rankings dropped because of Panda 4.0. The weird thing I noticed is purely a traffic drop while the ranks stayed the same. It dropped from 650/day to about 400 before Panda. I think that my long tail keywords started dropping ranks while the main ones remained put. Until Panda that is. What I'm asking is was there any updates around May 1?
Rony
05/23/2014 01:31 pm
Hi Goran, Yes there was some fluctuation on 1st may.I am sharing screenshot of it. Also as you are saying that you dont have penalty message in webmaster, But if you have algo penalty, your traffic and ranking can be dropped without sending you any notification.
Marie Haynes
05/23/2014 01:47 pm
Thanks Mike. Mine is not an affiliate site but it's a Q&A site. Every question is answered by me and I only index the really good content. It's from my days as a veterinarian prior to being in SEO. I'm feeling like the folks at Encyclopedia Atlantica: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZXUq7Pln3g
2infamouz
05/23/2014 04:03 pm
I got hit by penalties on multiple sites, one that had been attacked by negative SEO. Suprisingly all were resolved fairly quickly (one penalty was revoked within a day of getting it) and everything is looking good. Seeing nice SERP improvements on all sites after updating their dissavow lists and reformatting the layout to avoid JS / Banners / Large Images / Sliders above the fold. Diversifying anchors, taking full advantage of social media sites, and semantically optimizing sites seems to be working well atm. My good friend has a hunch that the new SEO is not doing SEO at all, and simply avoiding over optimization gives you a leg up over the competition these days - I can't stop some of my habbits, and they still seem to be working good, so I haven't gone as far as to stop "doing SEO", but I've moved further and further away from blackhat/shady/spammy methods and more towards long term results from quality websites, and it seems to be doing the trick.
wertwert
05/23/2014 04:14 pm
Rankings are still moving a lot. Its measurable.
Mike
05/23/2014 04:21 pm
LOL! That video just made my day.
Mike
05/23/2014 04:38 pm
Matt Cutts isn't always honest. My "theory" is that the update was actually finished by the time Cutts announced it. Also, Panda is something that is being altered month-to-month, meaning this "rollout" is something that will continue far beyond 2 weeks.
wertwert
05/23/2014 05:16 pm
just finished checking rankings and just as many pages moved up today as they did yesterday... everything is still in motion as far as my direct monitoring goes.
wertwert
05/23/2014 05:18 pm
All I can say is my ranking movement contradicts that theory... I like the theory you propose. My data just doesn't support it.
Mike
05/23/2014 06:24 pm
Well good stuff, I hope that upward trend continues for you! Are you located in the US? I saw some major traffic movements last week, over the weekend (no reason I should have been effected by payday loan 2.0 but it's possible), and into Monday and Tuesday. Since then, my rankings have pretty much stayed put.
wertwert
05/23/2014 07:15 pm
I am in the US... 15 retail websites, 250K pages, PR 5-8
Goran Gligorin
05/23/2014 08:48 pm
Can you link me to that screenshot? Just to make one thing clear - there's no such thing as an algorithm penalty. Google's algorithm doesn't do that. At least not yet. As far as I'm aware the algorithm itself never deindexed a site. What it does is decided where your should rank for a certain keyword based on your site's properties and how the algorithm values those particular properties. It's been said that as much as 400 factors can affect your site's rankings. Of course not all of them are equally important. Some may even have negative effects, but that's still not a penalty, because if you change that, Google will give you better rankings. The penalties themselves are done separately from the rankings algorithm by Google's Web Spam team. When they totally deindexed BuildMyRank, they did that manually with a use of some purpose build programs to find the sites in that network and they went manually into Google's database and removed those sites from being even considered by the algorithm. It similarly goes down with SAPE links every now and again. The Web Spam team finds a set of sites that hold SAPE links, remove any value from them and additionally give manual link penalties to all the sites those links were pointing at. They use tools for this, but it's not a part of the algorithm. They did later update their algorithm to not give as much value to links that don't come from the country you're searching in. Anyway, Panda seems to be a mostly on-page change on how the algorithm values your site. As far as I can tell freshness of the content became more important.
Ben Guest
05/23/2014 10:55 pm
Those two dates year over year, up 108%. Just plain ole white hat following Google's guidelines. So what is this about Google's morals and ethics again? Come on people, get a clue. You manipulate that algo, you are through. Remember this rhyme if you want to rank all the time. Penguins, Pandas and Hummingbirds, oh my! The only reason I pay attention is to see our ranks fly. No need to chase any animal. Just focus on your site, EARN that capital. If you are not playing this game legit. You might as well give up and quit. The End.
Perry Bernard
05/24/2014 04:59 am
That's awesome Ben! I love it.
Guest
05/24/2014 05:59 am
Cute...a guy that thinks he knows everything because his one site worked out for him.
Guest
05/24/2014 06:01 am
I white hat, I have more in-depth content than anybody in my field that I go directly up against. The leaders write rubbish and it's thin. My grammar is near perfect and I create all original content, yet I'm still hit by Panda. Panda can suck a dick. Google is not perfect and I can prove it.
ahutanimayur
05/24/2014 06:15 am
Thanks Goran Gligorin for update, even i already try diffrents type of works for seo for my web page but end of the day i wasnt able to improve ranking on google search engine, can u guide me what should i do to get my ranking much better.
ahutanimayur
05/24/2014 06:31 am
hello Marie my 3 website april month my all keyword google 40 in but google update so my all keyword not in google so please ask how to work to improve my website ranking
ahutanimayur
05/24/2014 06:35 am
Hello Everyone, i want to know what kind of Link Building can be effective according to Latest Panda Updates because my keywords was performed very well before Releasing Panda but after that its already gone down , what would you suggest to do.
Rony
05/24/2014 07:05 am
Herewith m attaching it. Without checking your webmaster and traffic detail, i cant find out the cause.
panda_made_me_sleepless
05/24/2014 03:30 pm
ya let google PANDA suck Ben's Dick for him to understand how flawed algorithm it is infact!
Ben Guest
05/24/2014 06:11 pm
I love you guys. You crack me up! Maybe I should be all anonymous and all. Troll on!
Ben Guest
05/24/2014 06:14 pm
Thanks Perry! Lol Well, looks like I have a target on my chest now. I try to lead them to water but I can't make them drink. And that's what makes the world go round... ;-)
Perry Bernard
05/24/2014 09:53 pm
Ya, you always get some haters, Ben. Don't worry about it.
Mike Lee
05/24/2014 11:58 pm
We are an ask-answer site, and lost ~1/3 of our organic search results around May 19/20 (www.humuch.com). We are still investigating the details, but don't think link building played a major role in Panda 4.0. Why can't online search be more transparent? It would be more efficient for websites and users
sonerismail
05/25/2014 05:35 pm
As of 21 of May, one of my client's site had an impressive drop on impressions and clicks on Google search. Especially for some phrases previously appearing in the first page of the search results, the site is now completely out of the first 2 results pages. For example the site had a rich article written about the Greek alphabet in Turkish language. Up to 21st of May site was getting good traffic through the search phrase "Greek alphabet" but now the page about Greek Alphabet does not appear on search results for that phrase. Instead it appears for Greek Numbers. Vise versa happens to the page written about Greek Numbers and the same thing happens to many other articles. Did anyone else had any similar experience?
Marie Haynes
05/26/2014 02:30 pm
Hi. If it's Panda that affected you then the most common culprits are having too much thin content or content that is not useful to people in the Google index. Glenn Gabe has a great summary here of the types of things that can cause a site to be affected by Panda: http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/panda-4-analysis/
Michael Korolishin
05/27/2014 01:14 pm
Panda doesn't look at your links so link building is never a factor in a Panda update.
dutch guest
06/06/2014 09:40 pm
It looks like Google Panda is rolling out in The Netherlands today. And unfortunately it hits my website. But it's very weird, because last days my rankings are increased up to 30%.. And today, my website traffic is 70% decreased.. Don't now what Google is doing right now, but I ask myself: Why are we so dependent of Google..
Ben Guest
06/06/2014 10:35 pm
You are absolutely correct. Anyone that depends on Google for income is very unwise. But to answer the question to yourself, because they almost have 70% of the search market. That's why you play the game by their rules. You don't have to. It's strictly by choice.
disqus_itj2oGM57G
06/11/2014 03:30 pm
The sites I work on are made up of largely unique, high-value content. To satisfy clients and "compete" with other sites, we do post some lightly edited press releases. (Edits are mostly for style, headlines and first paragraphs.) This is about 10 percent of our total content. Has anyone with a similar mix of original and press-release content seen a negative impact from Panda 4.0? So far, so good on our end. Just trying to be proactive instead of reactive. Thanks!
Michael Doubinski
07/28/2014 07:37 am
Did anyone notice much less relevant local search results in Australia or perhaps in other local markets after Panda 4? I notice foreign sites often even with stale content show above quality Australian properties. Any feedback?